A bacterial strain, designated J6T, was isolated from activated sludge, collected from a chemical wastewater treatment system in Zhejiang Province of China. The cells stained Gram-negative, were aerobic, pale-yellow, and non-motile short rods. Phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence indicated that the closest relative of this organism was Paracoccus aminophilus KACC 12262T = JCM 7686T (97.4 % sequence similarity). Strain J6T grew at 10–37 °C (optimum 30 °C), at pH 6.0–8.0 (optimum pH 7.0) and with 0–5 % NaCl (optimum 3 %, w/v). The predominant cellular fatty acid found was summed feature 8(C18:1 ω7c and/or C18:1 ω6c; 82.8 %). The major respiratory quinone-detected was Q-10 and the DNA G+C content was 61.9 mol %. The polar lipid profile consisted of phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine and several unknown polar lipids. Strain J6T showed low DNA–DNA relatedness values with P. aminophilus KACC 12262T (28 ± 3 %). The phylogenetic analysis, DNA–DNA hybridization, whole-cell fatty acid composition as well as biochemical characteristics allowed clear differentiation of the isolate from the other type strains of already described Paracoccus species. It is evident from the genotypic, phenotypic and chemotaxonomic analyses that strain J6T should be classified as a novel species of the genus Paracoccus, for which the name P. zhejiangensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is J6T (KACC 16703T = CCTCC AB 2012031T).