The activity of supported copper catalysts in the oxidative coupling of 2,6-dimethyl-phenol (DMP) has been studied with the aim of lowering as much as possible the metal leaching during the reaction. To achieve this goal both the influence of the catalyst support and of the solvent/amine couple have been investigated. The second one turned out to be decisive and the use of toluene/dibutylamine (DBA) allowed to reduce the leaching to <3%. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.