The purpose of this study was to investigate the diversity of cultivable N 2 -fixing and P-solubilizing bacteria originated from 167 rhizospheric acidic soils samples of tea. Based on the fatty acid methyl ester profiles, 34 bacterial genera were identified with a similarity index of >0.3, but 69.2% of the identified isolates belonged to five genera: Bacillus, Pseudomonas, Paenibacillus, Stenotrophomonas and Arthrobacter. Among the 263 bacterial strains, 213 strains exhibited N 2fixing activity and 159 were efficient in phosphate solubilisation; 134 strains were efficient in N 2 -fixation and P-solubilisation. Most of the N 2 -fixing and P-solubilizing bacteria isolated were Gram-positive (59.3 and 52.8%), and Gram-negative constituted only 40.7 and 47.2%. A total of 102 dominant strains were characterized by carbon sources using BIOLOG M GN2 and GP2 plates. B. pumilus, B. subtilis, B. licheniformis, B. laevolacticus, P. fluorescens, P. putida, S. maltophilia and B. megaterium were the most frequent P-solubilizing and N 2 -fixing species in the tea rhizosphere soils. Utilization of high variety of C-sources by the N 2 -fixing and P-solubilizing acid tolerant strains may play an important role in adapting to a variety of crop plants, and thus potentially beneficial to the growth of tea plants in that specific acidic ecosystem.