Beet western yellows virus (BWYV, genus Polerovirus, family Luteoviridae) infects Beta vulgaris, Raphanus sativus, Capsella bursa-pastoris plus a number of common weed species. In August 2014, pepper plants (Capsicum frutescens) showing mosaic and crinkling of the young leaves were observed in greenhouses in Tangshan city, Hebei province (China). Samples were collected from eight symptomatic pepper plants and tested for viruses by RT-PCR using total RNA isolated with TRIzol reagent (Tiangen, China) and degenerated primer pairs to detect poty-, tospo-, tobamo- and poleroviruses (Cortez et al., 2001; Letschert et al., 2002; Marie-Jeanne et al., 2000; Zhou et al., 2011) and specific primers to detect Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) (Wang et al., 2013). Potato virus Y and CMV were detected in all the samples and a 1412 bp amplicon was obtained from one sample with polerovirus primers PoconF (5′-TGYTCYGGTTTTGACTGG-3′) and PococpR (5′-CGTCTACCTATTTSGGRTTN-3′) designed in conserved sequences of ORF2 and ORF3, respectively (Zhou et al., 2011). Sequence analysis of the amplified fragment showed high nucleotide identity with a BWYV isolate from Korea (98%) (GenBank accession No. KM076647.1), followed by two BWYV isolates from Beijing (95-96%) (HM804471.1 and HM804472.1) and another BWYV isolate from USA (92%) (AF473561.1). To our knowledge, this is the first report on the occurrence of BWYV in Capsicum frutescens.