Strain MJ31(T), a gram-reaction-positive, aerobic, rod-shaped, non-motile bacterium, was isolated from a sludge sample collected at the Daejeon sewage-disposal plant, in South Korea, and characterized in order to determine its taxonomic position. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain MJ31(T) belonged to the genus Nocardioides, appearing most closely related to Nocardioides dubius KSL-104(T) (98.6 % sequence similarity), Nocardioides jensenii DSM 20641(T) (97.6 %), Nocardioides daedukensis MDN22(T) (97.2 %) and Nocardioides mesophilus MSL-22(T) (97.0 %). The chemotaxonomic properties of strain MJ31(T) were consistent with those of the genus Nocardioides: MK-8(H(4)) was the predominant menaquinone, iso-C(16 : 0), iso-C(17 : 0) and C(18 : 1)ω9c were the predominant cellular fatty acids, and the cell-wall peptidoglycan was based on LL-2,6-diaminopimelic acid. The genomic DNA G+C content of strain MJ31(T) was 71.2 mol%. Some differential phenotypic properties and low DNA-DNA relatedness values (<28 %) with the type strains of closely related species indicated that strain MJ31(T) represents a novel species, for which the name Nocardioides daejeonensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is MJ31(T) ( = KCTC 19772(T) = JCM 16922(T)).