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The purpose of this study was to identify the rate of parafoveal vessel density (VD) changes associated with the progression from non-diabetic retinopathy (NDR) to early stages of DR over a year. This longitudinal cohort study enrolled diabetic patients from the Guangzhou community in China. The patients with NDR at baseline were included and underwent comprehensive examinations at baseline and after 1 year. A commercial OCTA device (Triton Plus, Topcon, Tokyo, Japan) was employed to quantify the parafoveal VD in the superficial and deep capillary plexuses. The rates of change in parafoveal VD over time in the incident DR and NDR groups were compared after a year. A total of 448 NDR patients were included in the study. Among them, 382 (83.2%) were stable and 66 (14.4%) developed incident DR during the 1-year follow-up. The average parafoveal VD in the superficial capillary plexus (SCP) reduced significantly more quickly in the incident DR group than in the NDR group (-1.95 ± 0.45%/year vs. −0.45 ± 0.19/year, p = 0.002). The VD reduction rate for the deep capillary plexus (DCP) was not significantly different for the groups (p = 0.156). The incident DR group experienced a significantly faster reduction in parafoveal VD in the SCP compared with the stable group. Our findings further provide supporting evidence that parafoveal VD in the SCP may be used as an early indicator of the pre-clinical stages of DR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]