Abstract In recent years, persulfate (PS)-driven oxidation has been extensively studied as an efficient remediation technique for in situ chemical oxidation of contaminated sites. Among other ways, PS can be activated by UV radiation but most UV sources applied in PS activation studies are in the UVC range (λex ∼ 254 nm), whilst the use of UVA has received less attention. In this study the degradation of amicarbazone (AMZ), driven by the UVA/PS, UVA/PS/H2O2, Fe(II)/PS, UVA/Fe(II)/PS and UVA/chelated-Fe(III)/PS processes is described. Systems containing PS and chelated iron have shown to be the most effective, achieving total degradation of the pesticide in less than 20 min of reaction. Results also indicated that the addition of H2O2 did not significantly affect the performance of PS/UVA system under acidic media, but at neutral medium an important inhibition of AMZ degradation was observed. This investigation revealed that AMZ can be effectively degraded by UVA-activated persulfate and that ferric iron can greatly enhance this phenomenon.