A process for producing an acrylic ester using acrylic acid and an aliphatic or alicyclic alcohol having from 5 to 8 carbon atoms, as raw materials, and using a strongly acidic cation exchange resin as a catalyst. In such a process for producing an acrylic ester, a crude acrylic ester withdrawn from the bottom of a low-boiling separation column is supplied to a rectifying column, a rectified acrylic ester is taken out from the top of the rectifying column, while a high-boiling substance containing an acrylic ester, which is withdrawn from the bottom of the rectifying column, is supplied to a high-boiling separation column and/or a thin-film evaporator to separate it into an acrylic ester component and a high-boiling substance, and the separated acrylic ester component is taken out as a distillate and supplied to the low-boiling separation column for its recovery.