The effect of di-(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP) administration on cyanide-insensitive palmitoyl-CoA oxidizing activity in liver was studied. Two weeks of DEHP treatment increased the activity by one order of magnitude in male Wistar rats. A similar effect was also observed in male and female Sprague-Dawley rats and mice, but not in guinea pigs. When the liver was fractionated by differential centrifugation, the activity was concentrated in the light mitochondrial fraction. On the subfractionation of this fraction by sucrose density gradient centrifugation, the activity was distributed in a pattern similar to that of urate oxidase, but not resembling that of glutamate dehydrogenase. These data suggest that a fatty acyl-CoA oxidizing enzyme system which is located in peroxisomes is induced by the administration of DEHP.