A novel nocardioform actinomycete, designated strain NEAU-GQTH2-3(T), was isolated from muddy soil collected from a stream in Qitaihe, Heilongjiang Province, northeast China and characterized using a polyphasic approach. Phylogenetic analysis based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence demonstrated that the organism should be assigned to the genus Kribbella and forms a clade with Kribbella catacumbae JCM 14968(T) (99.2 % sequence similarity), Kribbella koreensis JCM 10977(T) (99.1 %), Kribbella ginsengisoli JCM 16928(T) (98.6 %) and Kribbella sancticallisti JCM 14969(T) (98.4 %), although with low bootstrap support. Morphological and chemotaxonomic properties of the isolate are in agreement with the description of the genus Kribbella. Chemotaxonomic characteristics include LL-diaminopimelic acid in the cell-wall peptidoglycan; glucose and ribose as the characteristic whole-cell hydrolysates; diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylinositol, a glycerolipid and an unidentified phospholipid as the predominant polar lipids; the major menaquinones MK-9(H4) and MK-9(H2); as well as iso-C15:0, iso-C16:0 and C17:1 ω7c being the predominant fatty acid components. Mycolic acids were not detected. Furthermore, the strain could be clearly distinguished by the combination of DNA-DNA hybridization results and some phenotypic characteristics from the closest phylogenetic relatives. Therefore, it is proposed that strain NEAU-GQTH2-3(T) represents a novel species of the genus Kribbella, for which the name Kribbella qitaiheensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is NEAU-GQTH2-3(T) (=CGMCC 4.7215(T) =JCM 30343(T)).