Land is the most critical asset in rural Ethiopia. With an ever-increasing population, the number of landless people has increased tremendously. Thus landlessness is a common reality in rural areas, including the study area. Having this in mind, this study was carried out to assess rural landlessness, access to land and livelihood options in Gubalafto woreda. The study applied mixed research method and all the necessary data required for this study were gathered from both primary and secondary sources. This study also employed both probability and non probability sampling techniques. For this study, two-sample kebeles were selected purposely. Also, 177 landless were selected using simple random sampling method. In addition, data was gathered by using key informant interview and focused group discussion with purposively selected individuals. A combination of both quantitative and qualitative data analysis methods were employed to analyze the data. Quantitative data which were generated from questionnaire survey were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Qualitative data that were collected from key informant interview and focused group discussion were analyzed following the principle of theme analysis. The findings of this study showed that rural landlessness is a serious and increasing problem from time to time. In this case, access to land has become a narrow possibility for the rural landless in the study area. Due to this only a fraction of the rural landless has got land from parents, sharecropping, government allocation and rent. This land access problem makes many landless live with their parents rather than leading independent life. The available livelihood options are scarce and even those started by few landless are not profitable. The result of this study also indicated that institutional efforts in facilitating provision of inputs required and in organizing the landless in integrated manner to reduce the problem of landless was weak. Therefore, the study recommends that, there must be clear guidelines or planned activities to be followed by each institution on how the landless issues should be handled, and institutional efforts should be strengthened to assist the landless in an integrated manner so that the landless could consider more livelihood options that are profitable