The influence of variable surface temperature and concentration on MHD stagnation point flow towards a stretching sheet plays an important role in wire coating, film blowing, fiber spinning and coating. In this work an attempt has been made to study the ramification of thermal radiation on MHD chemically reacting liquid past a stretching surface with nonlinear temperature and concentration. The nonlinear coupled governing equations are changed into a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations by adopting similarity transformations. The set of nonlinear equations together with the boundary conditions are solved computationally by employing shooting technique. The influence of various flow field parameters (magnetic parameter, suction/injection parameter, velocity ratio parameter, heat absorption, radiation, chemical reaction parameter, Schmidt number) on momentum, heat measure, diffusion, skin friction coefficient, rate of heat transfer and rate of mass transfer is depicted and discussed in detail. The outcomes disclosed that the fluid temperature accelerates on rising the thermal radiation and reverse trend with heat absorption parameter. Species concentration diminishes on enhancing the chemical reaction parameter. A comparison has been made with the published results as a particular case and found to be in fair agreement. Keywords Power law form of surface temperature and concentration • MHD • Thermal radiation • Chemical reaction List of symbols B 0 Uniform magnetic field a, b, c, n Constants c fx Skin-friction coefficient c p Specific heat at constant pressure (J kg −1 K) C w (x) =C ∞ + cx n Concentration of the sheet f ′ Dimensionless velocity k Thermal conductivity of fluid (W m −1 k −1