The present invention provides a steel wire rod for cold forging which can be spheroidizing-annealed in an as hot-rolled state without requiring preliminary drawing and can have high ductility after the spheroidizing annealing, and a method to produce the same: and is characterized in that; the steel contains, by weight, 0.1 to 0.5% of C, 0.01 to 0.5% of Si and 0.3 to 1.5% of Mn, with the balance consisting of Fe and unavoidable impurities, and further contains hardening elements as required; and the steel has a prior austenite grain size number, defined under Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) G 0551, of 11 or higher, the amount of diffusible hydrogen in the steel measured by the programmed temperature gas chromatography being 0.2 ppm or less, and the hardness being Hv 250 to 700. The production method is characterized by: hot rolling the steel at a low temperature; rapidly cooling and tempering the wire rod thus rolled by holding it in a furnace atmosphere controlled in the temperature range of 300 to 600° C. for 15 min. or longer but shorter than 1 h.; and then applying spheroidizing annealing as required.