The brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens Stål., is a major insect pest causing serious damage to the rice crop in many rice-producing countries. The aim of the study was to determine the inheritance characteristics and realized heritability of resistance to imidacloprid in N. lugens from Banyumas, Central Java Province, Indonesia. The five generations of selection increased the resistance ratio (RR) from 46.20-fold at generation 45 (G₄₅) to 150.39-fold (G₄₉) compared with the laboratory-susceptible population. The LC₅₀ values of imidacloprid for the progeny of reciprocal crosses, F₁ and F₁’, showed no significant differences, indicating that imidacloprid resistance was inherited autosomally in N. lugens. The degree of dominance (D) values for F₁ and F₁’ were 0.65 and 0.64, respectively, suggesting that imidacloprid resistance in N. lugens was expressed as an incompletely dominant trait. Chi-square analysis based on the monogenic hypothesis indicated that imidacloprid resistance in N. lugens was polygenic. Furthermore, the estimation realized heritability value (h²) was 0.0893. These results would be useful to determine an effective resistance management strategies in N. lugens.