We report a systematic investigation of dc magnetization and ac susceptibility, as well as anisotropic magnetocaloric effect in bulk CrI3 single crystals. A second-stage magnetic transition was observed just below the Curie temperature Tc, indicating a two-step magnetic ordering. The low temperature thermal demagnetization could be well fitted by the spin-wave model rather than the single-particle model, confirming its localized magnetism. The maximum magnetic entropy change −∆S max M ∼ 5.65 J kg −1 K −1 and the corresponding adiabatic temperature change ∆T ad ∼ 2.34 K are achieved from heat capacity analysis with the magnetic field up to 9 T. Anisotropy of ∆SM (T, H) was further investigated by isothermal magnetization, showing that the difference of −∆S max M between the ab plane and the c axis reaches a maximum value ∼ 1.56 J kg −1 K −1 with the field change of 5 T. With the scaling analysis of ∆SM , the rescaled ∆SM (T, H) curves collapse onto a universal curve, indicating a second-order type of the magnetic transition. Furthermore, the −∆S max M follows the power law of H n with n = 0.64(1), and the relative cooling power RCP depends on H m with m = 1.12(1).