One of the main impacts associated with global agricultural expansion is the use of pesticides to combat weeds that directly affect crop cultivation, with Brazil being the largest consumer of pesticides in the world. Imazethapyr (IMT) is an herbicide of the imidazolinone family used mainly in rice crops. Due to its negative effects on health, regulatory agencies recommend maximum limits close to 0.05 mg kg-1, making it necessary to develop monitoring methods. Therefore, this work deals with the development of a novel electroanalytical method for imazethapyr determination in rice samples using a molecularly imprinted polyvinylimidazole/functionalized carbon black-based paste electrode (MIP-fCBPE). Carbon black (CB) was functionalized by the insertion of oxygenated functional groups upon acid treatment with HNO3 and H2SO4, and, performed better than CBPE without functionalization. The insertion of molecularly imprinted polyvinylimidazole (MIP-VN) in the fCBPE promoted a significant increase in the cathodic peak current even at low proportions (7.5% w/w) due to the specific binding sites for IMT recognition. For IMT determination, DPV parameters were optimized by the Doehlert matrix applying 0.1 V for 60 s as pre-treatment in acetate buffer solution (pH 3.0) as supporting electrolyte. Under optimized conditions, the method showed low limit of detection (0.03 µmol L-1), a wide linear range (0.10 – 70.00 µmol L-1), and good precision in terms of repeatability of intraday measures (RSD% = 3.6). The method was applied to three different brands of rice samples, where no IMT was detected. Thus, the samples were incremented with three levels of IMT concentration (5.0, 100.0 and 300.0 µmol Kg-1), obtaining recoveries (96.3 - 105.7%) that indicate no matrix effects in the analysis and high potential for determining IMT in real samples. Moreover, the sensor preparation proved to be simple and reproducible, allowing the method to be fast and low-cost.