This paper discusses the principle of inter-regional agricultural ecological compensation based on a virtual cultivated land. and calculates the payment/reception area and financial transfer amount of inter-regional agricultural ecological compensation at two levels (inter-provincial and intra-provincial inter-city). Finally, it puts forward the "two horizontal" financial transfer path with compensation management platform as the intermediary.The results show that (1) the virtual cultivated land transfer area has paid excessive economic, resource and ecological costs, which need to be ecologically compensated by the virtual cultivated land as the carrier. In practice, the payment/reception region can be divided and payment/reception area can be calculated according to the net flow of virtual cultivated land.(2) In terms of inter-provincial compensation, the payment area consists of 16 provinces. among which the provinces with large virtual farmland area are mainly distributed in the eastern coastal areas and the southwestern region; The reception area contains 15 provinces, and the provinces and cities with large virtual cultivated land payment areas are mainly distributed in the north-eastern, north and north-western areas. In terms of inter-city compensation within a province, the cities with large payment areas of virtual cultivated land are mostly those with relatively high economic development levels within a province, the cities with large area of compensated virtual cultivated land are those with relatively low level of economic development and superior conditions of agricultural production conditions. (3) The amounts of compensation and payment are centralized at the provincial level or the inter-city level within a province. In terms of inter-provincial compensation, the average annual values for Guangdong, Beijing, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Tianjin, Jiangsu and Hubei provinces, and the municipalities with larger payment amounts exceeded 2.5 billion Yuan during the study period; and the average annual values for Heilongjiang, Jilin, Henan, Inner Mongolia, Anhui, Shandong, Hunan and Hebei provinces and municipalities with larger compensation amounts exceeded 4 billion Yuan. In terms of inter-provincial-inter-city compensation, the top 50% of the cities in Jiangsu, Henan and Gansu were responsible for more than 80% of the total payment and more than 70% of the total compensation amount. (4) The ‘two horizontal’ payment network can predict the inter-regional transfer of agricultural ecological compensation between provinces and cities within provinces via the intermediary role of the corresponding management platform.