The thermal behavior and kinetic parameters of halloysite-stearic acid (SA) intercalation complex were investigated by thermogravimetry and derivative thermogravimetry (TG-DTG), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopic analysis. The XRD data indicated that the intercalation of stearic acid into halloysite caused an increase in the basal spacing from 0.734 to 4.001 nm. However, the intensity of the 4.001 nm gradually decreased with the increase in temperature and disappeared around 200-300 °C. In the infrared spectra, the appearance of two significant bands at 2924 and 2851 cm−1 attributed to methyl and methylene indicated that SA molecules have been successfully inserted into halloysite interlayer. Nevertheless, the intensities of these bands gradually decreased with the temperature rising and remained until around 300 °C. The TG-DTG results indicated that the mass loss of the halloysite-SA complex contained two main stages, which correspond to (a) deintercalation of the SA molecules and (b) dehydroxylation of halloysite. The multi-heating rate TG data reveal that the halloysite-SA complex is stable below 300 °C, which is in agreement with the XRD and FT-IR data. The kinetics results showed that the deintercalation reaction and dehydroxylation reaction occurred with an average activation energy (E) of 88.3 and 212.4 kJ mol−1, respectively. Meanwhile, the deintercalation reaction of halloysite-SA intercalation complex was single mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]