•Ultrasound induced fissures and pores on rice granule surface.•Amorphous region of starch was destroyed by ultrasound rather than crystalline region.•Ultrasound treatments improved the uniformity of starch particle size.•Ultrasound-treated starch showed a similar pasting profiles to the native starch. To further investigate how controlled ultrasound treatments affect the morphology, physical property and fine structure of rice starch granules, the starch suspended in water was treated with different ultrasonic power levels (150, 300, 450 and 600 W) at 25 °C for 20 min. XRD, FT-IR and Raman spectroscopy were performed to characterise the long-range and short-range ordered structure of starch granules. Results indicated that ultrasound slightly destroyed the amorphous region of starch granules, while the A-type crystalline pattern remained unchanged. The result of chain length distributions showed that the fine structure of rice starch was not significantly changed by ultrasound treatment. SEM and particle size distribution demonstrated that ultrasound induced fissures and pores on the granule surface and elevated the homogeneity of granules, with minimum effect on the granule size. In addition, the thermal and pasting properties of rice starch were also measured by DSC and RVA. Results showed that after ultrasound treatments, the peak and breakdown viscosity increased, while the peak time, pasting temperature and gelatinisation enthalpy decreased. Overall, controlled ultrasound treatments dominantly modified the morphology and physical property of rice starch rather than the fine structure, providing additional information for the application of ultrasound on starch modification.