The objective of this study was to estimate surface runoff from rice paddy plots using an artificial neural network (ANN). A field experiment with three treatment levels was conducted in the NICS saemangum experimental field located in Iksan, Korea. The ANN model with the optimal network architectures, named Paddy1901 with 19 input nodes, 1 hidden layer with 16 neurons nodes, and 1 output node, was adopted to predict surface runoff from the plots. The model consisted of 7 parameters of precipitation, irrigation rate, ponding depth, average temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and solar radiation on the daily basis. Daily runoff, as the target simulation value, was computed using a water balance equation. The field data collected in 2011 were used for training and validation of the model. The model was trained based on the error back propagation algorithm with sigmoid activation function. Simulation results for the independent training and testing data series showed that the model can perform well in simulating surface runoff from the study plots. The developed model has a main advantage that there is no requirement for any prior assumptions regarding the processes involved. ANN model thus can be a good tool to predict surface runoff from rice paddy fields.