Inoculating rice plants by plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) may be used as a practical and eco‑friendly approach to sustain the growth and yield of drought stressed rice plants. The effect of rice inoculation using plant growth hormones was investigated under drip full irrigation (FI; 100% of evapotranspiration (ETc), and deficit irriga‑ tion (DI; 80% of ETc) on growth, physiological responses, yields and water productivities under saline soil (ECe = 6.87 dS m−1 ) for 2017 and 2018 seasons. Growth (i.e. shoot length and shoot dry weight), leaf photosynthetic pigments (chlorophyll ‘a’ and chlorophyll ‘b’ content), air–canopy temperature (Tc–Ta), membrane stability index (MSI%), and relative water content, (RWC%) chlorophyll fluorescence (F v/Fm) stomatal conductance (gs), total phenols, peroxidase (PO), polyphenol oxidase (PPO), nitrogen contents and water productivities (grain water productivity; G‑WP and straw water productivity; S‑WP) were positively affected and significantly (p < 0.05) differed in two seasons in response to the applied PGPR treatments. The highest yields (3.35 and 6.7 t ha−1 for grain and straw yields) as the average for both years were recorded under full irrigation and plants inoculated by PGPR. The results indicated that under water scarcity, application of (I80 + PGPR) treatment was found to be favorable to save 20% of the applied irrigation water, to produce not only the same yields, approximately, but also to save more water as compared to I 100%.