Azo dye decolourisation can be easily achieved by biological reduction under anaerobic conditions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the applicability of submerged anaerobic membrane bioreactors (SAMBRs) for the decolourisation of dyeing wastewater containing azo dyes. The reactive orange 16 was used as model of an azo dye. The results demonstrated that very high decolourisation (higher than 99%) can be achieved by SAMBRs. Although decolourisation was not significantly influenced by the azo dye concentrations up to 3.2 g L-1, methane production was greatly inhibited (up to 80-85%). Since volatile fatty acids accumulated in the treatment system with the azo dye concentration increase, methanogenes seem to be the most sensitive microbial populations of the anaerobic ecological community. The results demonstrated that anaerobic process combined with membrane filtration can deal with highly concentrated wastewaters that result from stream separation of industrial discharges. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.