The present study was conducted to investigate whether green tea may improve weight maintenance by preventing or limiting weight regain after weight loss of 5 to 10 % in overweight and moderately obese subjects. The study had a randomised, parallel, placebo-controlled design. A total of 104 overweight and moderately obese male and female subjects (age 18-60 years; BMI 25-35 kg/m(2)) participated. The study consisted of a very-low-energy diet intervention (VLED; 2.1 MJ/d) of 4 weeks followed by a weight-maintenance period of 13 weeks in which the subjects received green tea or placebo. The green tea contained caffeine (104 mg/d) and catechins (573 mg/d, of which 323 mg was epigallocatechin gallate). Subjects lost 6.4 (sd 1.9) kg or 7.5 (sd 2.2) % of their original body weight during the VLED (P<0.001). Body-weight regain was not significantly different between the green tea and the placebo group (30.5 (sd 61.8) % and 19.7 (sd 56.9) %, respectively). In the green tea treatment, habitual high caffeine consumption was associated with a higher weight regain compared with habitual low caffeine consumption (39 (sd 17) and 16 (sd 11) %, respectively; P<0.05). We conclude that weight maintenance after 7.5 % body-weight loss was not affected by green tea treatment and that habitual caffeine consumption affected weight maintenance in the green tea treatment.