Abstract Current study contains adaption of Haar wavelet discretization method (HWDM) for FG beams and its accuracy estimates. The convergence analysis is performed for differential equations covering a wide class of composite and nanostructures. Corresponding error bound has been derived. It has been shown that the order of convergence of the HWDM can be increased from two to four by applying Richardson extrapolation method. The theoretical estimates are validated by numerical samples considering FGM beam as a model problem. The results obtained by applying HWDM are compared with the results of finite difference method (FDM).