<p>Soil erosion is one of the most serious environmental hazards in the world. Continuous soil loss from the earth’s surface reduces soil fertility, which poses a significant threat to sustainable agricultural practice. In Jalpaiguri district, a major part of the area is occupied by tea plantation (595.30 km²), after agricultural land. The tea plantations are divided into two categories: Big Tea Estate (BTE), which accounts for 77.55% (461.60 km²), and Small Tea Gardens (STG), which contributes 22.45% (133.70 km²) of the district’s total area. The study attempts to estimate an average annual soil loss and identify soil risk zones in tea plantation areas by using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) and Weighted Linear Combination (WLC) models in the GIS platform. The selected key factors such as rainfall, slope, topographic, crop management, support practice and drainage density were incorporated into these models to provides a clear understanding about the soil erosion risk zones. A correlation matrix was extracted using ‘R’ software to determine the most important factors contributing to soil erosion in the study area. The findings reveal that 35.36% of the study region comes under a ‘very low risk’ of erosion, 49.30% ‘low risk’, 13.20% ‘moderate risk’ and 2.02% ‘high risk’. The estimated total annual soil loss in Jalpaiguri district was 342966.2 tons yr^− 1 with a rate of 1.0560 tons ha^− 1yr^− 1. The yearly soil loss rate in tea plantation areas was 0.668 tons ha^− 1yr^− 1 with a total soil loss of 72,657 tons yr^− 1. An analysis based on plantation types shows that, Big Tea Estates experiences higher soil erosion (36964.45 tons yr^− 1), compared to the Small Tea Gardens (34766.29 tons yr^− 1). However, when considering soil erosion as per unit area it was recorded high in the Small Tea Gardens (0.7043 tons ha^− 1yr^− 1). Assessment of soil erosion susceptibility zones and rate of soil loss in Jalpaiguri district might aid in future management decisions.</p>