During the study of hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria in the oil-contaminated soil of Biratnagar, Morang, Nepal, a yellow-coloured, Gram-staining-negative, aerobic, non-motile, and rod-shaped bacterium, designated strain C-5-3T, was isolated. This strain was characterized taxonomically by a polyphasic approach. Based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, strain C-5-3T belonged to the genus Chryseobacterium and was closely related to Chryseobacterium profundimaris DY46T (98.19 % sequence similarity), Chryseobacterium takakiae AG1-2T (98.15 % sequence similarity), Chryseobacterium taiwanense BCRC 17412T (98.14 % sequence similarity), Chryseobacterium camelliae THG C4-1T (97.73 % sequence similarity) and Chryseobacterium hispalense DSM 25574T (97.60 % sequence similarity). The predominant respiratory quinone was menaquinone-6, and phosphatidylethanolamine was the major polar lipid. The predominant fatty acids of strain C-5-3T were iso-C15 : 0, summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω7c and/or C16 : 1ω6c), iso-C17 : 0 3-OH and summed feature 9 (iso- C17 : 1ω9c and/or C16 : 0 10-methyl). The genomic DNA G+C content of this novel strain was 38.6 mol%. The DNA-DNA relatedness between strain C-5-3T and Chryseobacterium profundimaris JCM 19801T, C. takakiae DSM 26898T, C. taiwanense KACC 13400T, C. camelliae KACC 16985T and C. hispalense DSM 25574T was 53.3, 42.7, 47.3, 33.0 and 28.0 %, respectively. The morphological, physiological, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic analyses clearly distinguished this strain from its closest phylogenetic neighbours. Thus, strain C-5-3T represents a novel species of the genus Chryseobacterium, for which the name Chryseobacterium nepalense sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is C-5-3T (=KEMB 9005-411T=KACC 18907T=JCM 31469T).