As an agricultural pest, the rice water weevil (RWW), Lissorhoptrus oryzophilus, poses a severe threat to agriculture in China. This study aimed to predict the suitable distribution of the RWW in China under current and future climatic conditions based on MaxEnt model with tuning parameters. The results showed that the dominant environmental variables that influenced the geographic distribution of RWW were temperature seasonality (Bio4), mean temperature of the coldest quarter (Bio11), precipitation seasonality (Bio15), and precipitation of the warmest quarter (Bio18). Under the current climatic conditions, the total suitable area of RWW in China was 391.0698 million hm², accounting for 40.77% of China. These suitable areas were mainly located in eastern China, central China and southern China. There was considerable overlap between the suitable areas of RWW and rice cropping regions in China. Under future scenarios, the highly suitable areas for RWW would increase significantly. The centroid migration in the suitable areas of RWW showed a trend of moving eastward and northward. The results of this study can provide theory and data support for the monitoring, early warning and control of RWW.