A Gram-positive, non-motile strain, designated CPCC 202695T, was isolated from a soil sample collected from the Qinghai–Tibet plateau, north-west China. Strain CPCC 202695T contained rhamnose, glucose and galactose in the cell wall as diagnostic sugars and 2,4-diaminobutyric acid, alanine, glutamic acid and glycine in the peptidoglycan. The polar lipids consisted of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol and two unknown glycolipids. MK-12 was the predominant menaquinone and anteiso-C15 : 0 (34.2 %), iso-C15 : 0 (19.8 %), iso-C16 : 0 (12.7 %) and anteiso-C17 : 0 (11.1 %) were the major fatty acids. 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities (94.2–97.1 %) between the isolate and the type strains of recognized species of the genus Agromyces indicated that strain CPCC 202695T was a member of the genus Agromyces. DNA–DNA relatedness clearly separated strain CPCC 202695T from its closest relatives. The phenotypic and genotypic data demonstrated that strain CPCC 202695T represents a novel species of the genus Agromyces, for which the name Agromyces flavus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is CPCC 202695T ( = KCTC 19578T = CCM 7623T).