A Gram-negative, aerobic, motile, straight or curved rod-shaped marine bacterium was isolated from marine sediment of the East Sea, Korea. The isolated strain, JG120-1T, grows with 0–5 % (w/v) NaCl and at 15–30 °C and pH 6–9. α-galactosidase activity test was positive. Comparative 16S rRNA gene sequence studies showed that this strain belonged to the Alphaproteobacteria and was the most closely related to Hoeflea alexandrii AM1 V30T, Hoeflea phototrophica DFL-43T and Hoeflea marina LMG 128T (98.9, 97.9 and 97.0 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities, respectively). Strain JG120-1T was found to possess summed feature 8 (C18:1ω7c/C18:1ω6c, 71.11 %) as the major cellular fatty acid. The major ubiquinone was determined to be Q-10. Polar lipids include phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, sulfoquinovosyl diacylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylmonomethylethanolamine. The G+C content of the genomic DNA of strain JG120-1T was determined to be 57.8 mol %. DNA–DNA relatedness data indicated that strain JG120-1T represents a distinct species that is separate from H. phototrophica DFL-43T, H. marina LMG128T and H. alexandrii AM1 V30T. On the basis of polyphasic evidences, it is proposed that strain JG120-1T (= KCTC 23107T = JCM 16715T) represents the type strain of a novel species, Hoeflea halophila sp. nov.