In this paper, we present an output feedback receding horizon control for a class of SISO nonlinear systems. A globally stabilizing state feedback receding horizon control scheme is combined with a discretized high gain observer. This is motivated by the fact that measurable system's outputs are only available at specific sampling intervals. Our result follows from the application of a separation principle applicable to a class of sampled-data nonlinear systems. It is shown that the output-feedback scheme recovers the performance (rate of convergence) achieved under state feedback receding horizon control for a sufficiently large observer gain and sampling frequency. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rialits reserved.