Abstract: In order to predict the residence time of cut tobacco in a cylinder dryer accurately, the effects of cylinder's rotational speed, air velocity in cylinder, cut tobacco throughput, cylinder's inclination angle and moisture content in cut tobacco on the residence time of cut tobacco in a cold-state cylinder dryer equipped with 12 shoveling plates were studied by single factor experiments. Two prediction models were developed and compared with three other empirical prediction models. The results showed that: 1)All of the five experimental factors influenced the residence time of cut tobacco, among them, the influence of cylinder's rotational speed was exponential, that of air velocity in cylinder and moisture content in cut tobacco was linear, that of cut tobacco throughput could be regarded as either linear or reciprocal, and that of cylinder's inclination angle was reciprocal. 2) The predicted results by the developed models well agreed with experiment results, the models were more suitable for experimental cold-state cylinders.