【Objective】 The frequent redox alternations in paddy soils make the biochemical reactions of different forms of sulfur active, which has a significant influence on rice production.【Method】 This study aimed to explore the characteristics of sulfur cycling pathways in red paddy soils with different parent materials. Also, the influence of parent materials on the characteristics of sulfur cycling pathways, sulfur metabolizing microorganisms, and the main functional microbial communities responsible for each sulfur cycling pathway; including the organic sulfur transformation pathway, other (transfer) pathway, assimilate sulfate reduction pathway, sulfur oxidation pathway, alienation sulfate sulfur reduction approach and disproportionation. 【Result】 The two kinds of parent material developed red paddy soils had the same characteristics of the sulfur cycle pathway. The frequency of microbial functional gene abundance in the organic sulfur transformation pathway was the highest, with an average of 16 000 organic sulfur transformation functional genes detected per million annotated bacterial sequences. Also, the frequency of the abundance of sulfur disambiguation pathway functional genes was the lowest, and only 116 genes were detected per million annotated bacterial sequences. At the level of phylum classification, there was no significant difference in the composition of microorganisms leading the sulfur cycle in the two parent soils. Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria and Chloroflexi were the dominant groups, accounting for 55.19%, 10.61% and 7.18%, respectively. There were significant differences in species classification, and the relative abundance of sulfur-cycling microorganisms in paddy soils developed from granitic parent material was higher. The dominant bacteria in all the channels were the Deltaproteobacteria, Acidobacteria, and Betaproteobacteria, and this abundance accounted for more than 40% of the sulfur-circulating microorganisms in granitic parent paddy soil. However, dominant functional microorganisms involved in each pathway of the sulfur cycle were more abundant in paddy soil developed from Quaternary red clay parent material, for example, Gemmatirosa kalamazoonesis had the highest abundance in organic sulfur transformation pathway while Azoarcus sp. was found in other(transport) pathways. The microorganisms with the highest abundance in the assimilation sulfate reduction pathway are Anaeromyxobacter sp. 【Conclusion】 The same sulfur cycling pathway was observed in paddy soils derived from red earth with two different parent materials. There was no significant difference in the dominant sulfur-cycling microorganisms in paddy soils derived from red earth with two parent materials at the phylum level. However, there were significant differences in species-level classification, indicating that there is unique dominant sulfur transformation functional flora in soils of different parent materials.