The rapid determination of trace phenolic compounds is of great importance for evaluating the total toxicity of contaminated water samples. Nowadays, electrochemical tyrosinase (Tyr) based biosensors constitute a promising technology for the in situ monitoring of phenolic compounds because of their advantages such as high selectivity, low production cost, promising response speed, potential for miniaturization, simple instrumentation and easy automatization. A mediator-free amperometric biosensor for phenolic compounds detection based on the combination of bismuth nanoparticles (BiNPs) and Tyr for phenol detections will be hereby reported. This is achieved through the integration of BiNPs/Tyr onto the working electrode of a screen printed electrode (SPE) by using glutaraldehyde as a cross-linking agent. BiNPs/Tyr biosensor is evaluated by amperometric measurements at -200. mV DC and a linear range of up to 71. μM and 100. μM and a correlation coefficient of 0.995 and 0.996 for phenol and catechol, respectively. The very low DC working potential ensures the avoidance of interferences making this biosensor an advantageous device for real sample applications. In addition, the response mechanism including the effect of BiNPs based on electrochemical studies and optical characterizations will be also discussed. The obtained results may open the way to many other BiNPs applications in the biosensing field. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.