Abstract In this paper we present an output feedback nonlinear control for position tracking of electro-hydraulic systems (EHSs). Although previous nonlinear control methods improved the position tracking performance of EHS, all of the methods require full state feedback. However, due to cost and space limitations, it is not always possible to measure the full state of the EHS. The proposed method consists of a high gain observer and a passivity-based controller. The high gain observer is designed to estimate the full state, and the passivity-based control is implemented for position tracking. In order to design the passivity-based controller with the high gain observer, a defined Lyapunov condition guarantee that the origin of the tacking error dynamics is exponentially stable by selecting the controller gain. The stability of the closed-loop is studied using the singular perturbation theorem. The performance of the proposed method is validated through simulations and experiments.