A high-quality development evaluation index system for rural economy in the Yellow River Basin is constructed from six dimensions: economy, innovation, coordination, green, openness, and sharing. The vertical and horizontal leveling method and entropy weight method are used to measure the high-quality development of rural economy and digital economy in the Yellow River Basin. A panel threshold regression model is constructed to discuss the impact of digital economy on the high-quality development level of rural economy in the Yellow River Basin under the intervention of fiscal vertical imbalance.It is found that there is a significant single threshold effect of fiscal vertical imbalance, and the digital economy has a significant positive effect on the high-quality development level of rural economy. When the digital economy breaks through a certain critical value, its positive effect on the high-quality development level of rural economy will increase. Based on this, corresponding policy recommendations are proposed.