Autophagy is a vital cellular quality control pathway that enables plants to adapt to changing environments. By degrading damaged or unwanted components, autophagy maintains cellular homeostasis. While the organismal phenotypes of autophagy deficient plants under stress are well characterized, the contribution of cell type specific autophagy responses to whole plant homeostasis remains poorly understood. Here, we show that root hair forming cells (trichoblasts) of Arabidopsis thaliana exhibit higher autophagic flux than adjacent nonhair cells (atrichoblasts). This differential autophagy is genetically linked to cell fate determination during early development. Mutants disrupting trichoblast or atrichoblast identity lose the autophagy distinction between these cell types. Functional analyses reveal that elevated autophagy in trichoblasts is essential for sodium ion sequestration in vacuoles, a key mechanism for salt stress tolerance. Disrupting autophagy specifically in trichoblasts impairs sodium accumulation and reduces plant survival under salt stress. Conversely, cell type specific complementation restores both sodium sequestration and stress tolerance. Our findings uncover a cell type specific autophagy program in root hairs and demonstrate how developmental cues shape autophagy to enhance stress resilience. This work establishes a direct link between cell identity, autophagy, and environmental adaptation in plants.