The chemical oxygen demand (COD) and five-day biological oxygen demand (BOD5) removal efficiencies of a packed cage rotating biological contactor (RBC) system under a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 16 h declined from 93.90% to 78.58% and 78.61% and 96.27% to 84.83% and 87.93%, respectively, with an increase of sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) and triton X-100 loading from 0.00 to 1.25 mg/m 2 ⋅d. Reactor no. 1 of the system changed to anaerobic when the system was operated under an HRT of 8 h with surfactant loading of up to 2.55 mg/m 2 ⋅d. However, reactor no. 2 of the system was aerobic and the dissolved oxygen was higher than 3.00 mg/L. The study showed that this type of packed cage RBC system could be applied for treating the cosmetic industry wastewater with surfactant loading of up to 2.55 mg/m 2 ⋅d under an HRT of 8 h.