An MRI apparatus capable of selecting an optional direction as a phase encoding direction and achieving a preferable S/N, when an imaging time shortening technique is applied. A receiver coil, used as a receiver coil of a vertical magnetic field MRI apparatus, is a combination of a first coil (solenoid coil) forming a current loop around the outer circumference of a test object, second coils forming even-numbered current loops, and third coils forming odd-numbered current loops, in the direction intersecting the plane of the current loop of the first coil. The second coil and the third coil are arranged in such a manner that, as for the current loops in the array direction thereof, a position where a sensitivity of one coil is minimized approximately coincides with a position where the sensitivity of the other coil is maximized, whereby electromagnetic coupling is suppressed.