In the present paper, the concrete decontamination and decommissioning process with a finite microwave heating source is investigated theoretically. For the microwave induced heating pattern, a multilayer concrete slab, which includes steel reinforcement mesh, is assumed to be exposed to a finite plane microwave source at normal incidence. Two-dimensional heat transport within the concrete is also considered to evaluate the variations of temperature with heating time at different frequencies with and without the presence of the reinforcement bars. Four commonly used industrial microwave frequencies of 0.896, 2.45, 10.6 and 18.0 GHz have been selected. The results revealed that as the microwave frequency increases to, or higher than 10.6 GHz, the maximum temperature shifts toward the front surface of the concrete. It was found that the presence of a steel reinforcement mesh causes part of the microwave energy to be blocked and reflected. Furthermore, it was observed that the temperature distribution is nearly uniform within the dimensions of the microwave applicator for a high microwave power intensity (Q(0,ave) almost-equal-to 8.0 x 10(5) W m-2) and a short heating time (t almost-equal-to 60 s).