A Gram-positive and non-motile actinobacterium, designated strain EGI 60016T, was isolated from healthy roots of Glycyrrhiza uralensis F. collected from Xinyuan County, Xinjiang Province, China. The 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain EGI 60016T was found to show 97.5 and 97.3 % sequence similarities to Nesterenkonia rhizosphaerae EGI 80099T and Nesternkonia massiliensis NP1T, respectively. The neighbour-joining phylogenetic tree based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain EGI 60016T formed a distinct clade with N. rhizosphaerae EGI 80099T and N. massiliensis NP1T. The polar lipids detected for strain EGI 60016T were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol, an unidentified glycolipid, an unidentified lipid and an unidentified phospholipid. The DNA G+C content was determined to be 64.1 mol%. Other chemotaxonomic features of strain EGI 60016T included MK-7, MK-8 and MK-9 as the respiratory quinones, and anteiso-C15 : 0 and anteiso-C17 : 0 as the major fatty acids. Based on the results of the phylogenetic analysis supported by morphological, physiological, chemotaxonomic and other differentiating phenotypic characteristics, strain EGI 60016T is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Nesterenkonia, for which the name Nesterenkonia endophytica sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is EGI 60016T (=CCTCC AB 2017176T=NBRC 112398T).