The invention provides a visual inspection method for step defects of bearing rivets. The method comprises the following steps: step 1, bearing rivet image acquisition; step 2, bearing rivet image preprocessing; step 3, inner step defect detection; step 4, outer step defect detection; step 5, result analysis for judging qualification of rivets, wherein unqualified phenomena comprise inner step defects, outer step defects, inner and outer step defects or other types of defects. The method has the following advantages: 1) rivet regions are positioned reasonably and the defects are detected with an adaptive detection method, and the algorithm robustness is good; 2) in the aspect of detection of rivet inner step defects, an region labeling method is good in stability; 3) for inner steps, the inner step judging accuracy is enhanced with a secondary region labeling algorithm; 4) during outer step detection, outer ring parameters are detected firstly through Hough Transform, then whether outer step regions are effective or not is judged according to a geometric constraint relation between outer rings and rivet regions, judgment is effective, and misjudgment is avoided.