Abstract Debonding failures of FRP have been frequently observed in laboratory tests of reinforced concrete (RC) beams flexurally-strengthened with near-surface mounted (NSM) fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP). A number of numerical and theoretical studies have been carried out to predict debonding failures in NSM FRP-strengthened beams, and several strength models have also been proposed. The existing studies, however, were all based on the scenario of a simply supported beam tested under one or two-point loading, while the influence of load distribution has not yet been investigated. This paper presents the first ever study into the effect of load distribution on the behaviour of NSM FRP-strengthened RC beams. A series of large-scale RC beams flexurally-strengthened with NSM FRP strips were first tested under different load uniformities; then a finite element (FE) model, which can give close predictions to the behaviour of such strengthened beams, was developed; finally, the proposed FE model was utilized to investigate the influence of bond length of NSM FRP on the load uniformity effect. It was found that the load uniformity has a significant effect on the beam behaviour, and the degree of this effect varies with the bond length of NSM FRP.