To explore the shrinkage influence on fresh shelled peanut hot air drying, improving drying quality, this experiment with fresh shelled peanut as raw material, the selection of different temperature gradient (40, 50, 60 ℃) hot air drying conditions on the shrinkage characteristics were studied, and established the corresponding mathematical model fitting. The results showed that in the drying process, the volume contraction ratio of peanut shell and peanut kernel decreased gradually, the contraction rate increased, and the void volume increased gradually. The peanut shell contracted first than the kernel, and the net structure was seriously deformed after the contraction. Temperature from 40 ℃ to 60 ℃, peanuts and peanut kernel contraction ratio decreased 8.0% and 7.1% respectively. Quadratic model and Vazquez model were the optimal contraction models of peanut shell and nut kernel respectively. The two models had a high degree of fitting and could well reflect the changes of volume contraction during the hot-air drying of fresh peanuts with shell. Therefore, the results of this study can more accurately predict the drying characteristics of fresh shelled peanuts during the hot air drying process, and provide a reference for the optimization of the hot air drying process of fresh shelled peanuts.