Abstract: This study examined credit constraint and poverty among the smallholder rural farming households in Southwest Nigeria. Primary data was randomly collected using structured questionnaire from 300 smallholder farmers in the study area. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, Probit Regression Model, the Foster, Greer and Thorbecke in 1984 class of poverty measures (FGT) and the Logit Regression Model. The result shows that majority (69%) of the respondents are credit constrained and this has a positive influence on their poverty status as about 71% of the credit constrained households fall below the poverty line compared to about 45% of their unconstrained counterparts. Among the constrained 37.86% are core poor and 32.52% are moderately poor while 29.61% are non-poor compared to 17.02, 27.66 and 55.32% for core poor, moderately poor and non-poor, respectively among their unconstrained counterparts. Gender, age, level of education, off-farm income source and membership of farmers’ association are variables that significantly influenced both credit constraint condition and poverty of the farmers while age, farm size and credit constraint influenced only poverty status of rural households in Southwest Nigeria. This study concludes that improvement in credit access among the farming households, especially the credit constraint is imperative for poverty alleviation. Gender differences with respect to credit constraint should be critically checked. Extending credit to women will not only accelerate production but also improve rural livelihood and reduce poverty.