A 5-week Soybean Meal Use-Aquaculture  feeding trial was conducted to examine the effect of γ-ray irradiation on the inclusion of soybean meal (SBM) and soy protein concentrate (SPC) in diets of juvenile golden pompano (Trachinotus ovatus). One diet containing 320 g/kg fish meal served as a reference (C), and another four diets were formulated with 75% of the fish meal replaced by soybean meal (SBM), soy protein concentrate (SPC), SBM irradiated with γ-ray at 30 kGy (SBM30) or SPC irradiated with γ-ray at 30 kGy (SPC30). The weight gain was higher in fish fed diets SBM30 and SPC30 than in fish fed diets SBM and SPC, respectively, whereas fish consumed more diet SBM30 than diets SBM, SPC or SPC30. No significant differences were found in feed conversion ratio, nitrogen retention efficiency, phosphorus retention efficiency, condition factors, hepatosomatic index, body composition, waste outputs of nitrogen and phosphorus either between fish fed diets SBM and SBM30 or between fish fed diets SPC and SPC30. Macromolecular proteins in SBM and SPC were degraded, whereas the contents of peptides with molecular weight ‹6.5 kDa were increased by γ-ray irradiation. This study reveals that γ-ray irradiation can improve the performance of SBM and SPC as a fish meal substitute in the golden pompano diet.