Let $T=\mathcal {M}[S;I,J;P]$ be a Rees matrix semigroup where $S$ is a semigroup, $I$ and $J$ are index sets, and $P$ is a $J\times I$ matrix with entries from $S$, and let $U$ be the ideal generated by all the entries of $P$. If $U$ has finite index in $S$, then we prove that $T$ is periodic (locally finite) if and only if $S$ is periodic (locally finite). Moreover, residual finiteness and having solvable word problem are investigated.