<p>This work reports the preparation of magnetic biochar (biochar-Fe) derived from abundantly available sugar palm waste (<i>Arenga pinnata</i>) which is commonly cultivated and utilised in South-East Asia, especially in Indonesia. To generate surface acidity, biochar-Fe was functionalised with tungstophosphoric acid (TPA). Magnetic property of the prepared biochar is confirmed by the visual inspection and corroborated by the vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) measurement demonstrating a narrow hysteresis, a typical soft ferromagnetic material. X-ray diffraction (XRD) in combination with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) verifies the peaks representing Fe₂O₃ and Keggin’s structure of tungstophosphoric acid (TPA). The existence of TPA is also affirmed by its characteristic bands in the IR spectroscopy. Meanwhile, the deconvoluted XPS spectra suggests the presence of W⁶⁺ and Fe³⁺. NH₃-TPD and acid–base titration emphasise a large increase of surface acidity following the TPA impregnation onto biochar-Fe. Catalytic activity of TPA/biochar-Fe is assessed in the synthesis of butyl levulinate (BL) via esterification of levulinic acid (LA). Comparable BL yield around 10–14% is observable for the reaction without catalyst and the non-functionalised biochar-Fe. On the other hand, TPA functionalised biochar-Fe largely improves the yield up to 51%. Under optimised conditions, 63% BL can be attained applying n-butanol/LA molar ratio of 5 at 120 °C for 360&#xa0;min. The catalyst suffers from deactivation mainly due to the dissolution of TPA into the reaction mixture during the reaction as confirmed by the filtration test and the disappearance of TPA reflections in the diffractogram of the used catalyst.</p>