Abstract This paper presents a fuzzy extension of the disassembly line balancing problem (DLBP) with fuzzy task processing times since uncertainty is the main character of real-world disassembly systems. The processing times of tasks are formulated by triangular fuzzy membership functions. The balance measure function is modified according to fuzzy characteristics of the disassembly line. A hybrid discrete artificial bee colony algorithm is proposed to solve the problem whose performance is studied over a well-known test problem taken from open literature and over a new data set introduced in this study. Furthermore, the influence of the fuzziness on the computational complexity of HDABC is evaluated and the solution quality of the proposed algorithm is compared against discrete and traditional versions of the artificial bee colony algorithm. Computational comparisons demonstrate the superiority of the proposed algorithm.