In the present study, KBiO3 is synthesized by a standard oxidation technique while LiBiO3 is prepared by hydrothermal method. The synthesized catalysts are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) , Scanning ElectronMicroscopy (SEM) , BET surface area analysis and Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy (DRS) . The XRD patterns suggest that KBiO3 crystallizes in the cubic structure while LiBiO3 crystallizes in orthorhombic structure and both of these adopt the tunnel structure. The SEM images reveal micron size polyhedral shaped KBiO3 particles and rod-like or prismatic shape particles for LiBiO3. The band gap is calculated from the diffuse reflectance spectrum and is found to be 2.1 eV and 1.8 eV for KBiO3 and LiBiO3, respectively. The band gap and the crystal structure data suggest that these materials can be used as photocatalysts. The photocatalytic activity of KBiO3 and LiBiO 3 are evaluated for the degradation of anionic and cationic dyes, respectively, under UV and solar radiations. © Indian Academy of Sciences.