A method for producing magnetic powder for forming a sintered body that is a precursor of a rare-earth magnet, the sintered body including an Nd-Fe-B-based main phase with a nanocrystalline structure, and a grain boundary phase around the main phase, whose compositional formula: x(Rh)yTzBsMt, where RI represents one or more light rare-earth elements including Y, Rh represents one or more heavy rare-earth elements including Dy or Tb, T represents a transition metal including at least one of Fe, Ni, or Co,_M represents one or more metals selected from Ga, Zn, Si, Al, Nb, Zr, Ni, Cu, Cr, Hf, Mo, P, C, Mg, Hg, Ag or Au, and 13 ≤ x ≤ 20,0 ≤ y ≤ 4, z = 100 - a - b - d - e - f, 4 ≤ s ≤ 20,0 ≤ t ≤3, and the compositions of RIRh phase structures, such as a main phase of (RIRh)2T14B and a grain boundary phase of (RIRh)T4B4, or the compositions of RIRh phase structures, such as a main phase of (RIRh)2T14B and a grain boundary phase of (RIRh)2T17, and the rare-earth magnet being adapted to be formed by applying hot deformation processing to the sintered body for imparting anisotropy thereto, the method is characterized by: discharging a metal melt with the composition onto a chill roll to produce a quenched ribbon, and grinding the quenched ribbon into grains in a size range of 50 to 1000 μm to produce magnetic powder in a mass range of 0.0003 to 0.3 mg; and conducting a test to see whether or not the magnetic powder in the mass range adsorbs onto a magnet with a surface magnetic flux density of 2 mT or less, and sorting out magnetic powder that has not adsorbed onto the magnet, as the magnetic powder for forming the sintered body and provided that a region of the sorted magnetic powder corresponding to a region of the quenched ribbon, which is a precursor of the magnetic powder, on the chill roll side is a roll-surface-side region of the magnetic powder, and a region corresponding to a region of the quenched ribbon on the opposite side of the chill roll is a free-surface-side region, and further, an average grain size of the crystal grains in the free-surface-side region of the magnetic powder is D free, and an average grain size of the crystal grains in the roll-surface-side region of the magnetic powder is D roll, D free is in a range of 20 to 200 nm, and D free /D roll is in a range of 1.1 to 10. discharging a metal melt with the composition onto a chill roll to produce a quenched ribbon, and grinding the quenched ribbon into grains in a size range of 50 to 1000 μm to produce magnetic powder in a mass range of 0.0003 to 0.3 mg; and conducting a test to see whether or not the magnetic powder in the mass range adsorbs onto a magnet with a surface magnetic flux density of 2 mT or less, and sorting out magnetic powder that has not adsorbed onto the magnet, as the magnetic powder for forming the sintered body and provided that a region of the sorted magnetic powder corresponding to a region of the quenched ribbon, which is a precursor of the magnetic powder, on the chill roll side is a roll-surface-side region of the magnetic powder, and a region corresponding to a region of the quenched ribbon on the opposite side of the chill roll is a free-surface-side region, and further, an average grain size of the crystal grains in the free-surface-side region of the magnetic powder is D free, and an average grain size of the crystal grains in the roll-surface-side region of the magnetic powder is D roll, D free is in a range of 20 to 200 nm, and D free /D roll is in a range of 1.1 to 10.