In recent years, it has been realised that the damage of peppers is increasing markedly due to temporal and spatial variations of plant-parasitic nematodes. In order to protect the crop from these nematodes, there is a need for an intensive survey, and accurate identification of these pathogens from the complex tropical and sub-tropical agricultural system. To this end, a total of 105 soil samples were collected (in 2017 and 2018) from the rhizosphere of pepper plant in major pepper-grown areas for nematode detection. Results showed 83.3, 87.5, 88.9 and 93.8% of the fields surveyed in Sekoru, Kersa, Shabe Sombo and Omo Nada districts of Ethiopia harboured nematodes that were identified into 13 genera, of which six genera were frequently and abundantly recovered from most of the surveyed areas including Meloidogyne, Scutellonema, Rotylenchulus, Helicotylenchus, Pratylenchus and Rotylenchus. Molecular analysis also showed that all the root-knot nematodes were Meloidogyne incognita. The Pearson correlation analysis indicated that soil EC (r2 = 0.914) and sand content (r2 = 0.864) had strong positive correlation with the nematode density of major pepper parasitic nematodes, while organic matter (r2 = –0.96) showed strong negative correlation. Therefore, further study is needed to assess the damage level caused to hot pepper for appropriate management strategies of the nematode.