Improving the efficiency of family farms is of great significance to rural revitalization and agricultural modernization in China. In order to find out the development status and shortcomings of family farms in China, and put forward targeted policy recommendations to improve the efficiency of various family farms, this paper applies the DEA model to measure the efficiency of family farms from a micro perspective by using the field survey data of the national family farm demonstration bases of Wuhan and Langxi, China. In addition, the Tobit model is further applied to explore the factors that affect the efficiency of full sample family farms, as well as to compare and analyze the differences in the efficiency in different regions and of different operation types. The results show that the efficiency of family farms is low, the efficiency of family farms in Wuhan is higher than that in Langxi, and the efficiency of breeding family farms is higher than that of planting family farms and mixed family farms. Capital input, farmers’ education level, market channels, brand registration, fertilizer usage and financial credit have positively affected the efficiency of family farms, while government subsidies and natural disasters have had negative effects on it. Specially, the land operating area shows a U-shaped relationship with farm efficiency. The efficiency of planting family farms is positively affected by labor input, while that of breeding and mixed family farms rely more on capital input and financial credit instead. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.