The linear disturbance observer (DOB) approach has been Successfully employed as a tool for robust control and disturbance rejection in practice. In this paper, we present a nonlinear DOB which inherits all the benefits of the classical linear DOB approach. In particular, we prove that the proposed nonlinear DOB recovers not only the steady-state performance but also the transient performance of the nominal closed-loop system under plant uncertainties and input disturbances. One novel feature of the proposed controller is that it is an add-on type inner-loop output-feedback controller: thus any type of outer-loop controller can be combined to enhance the closed-loop system performance. Our result is a semi-global one and the stability proof is given when the nonlinear system has a well-defined relative degree with a stable zero dynamics, (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.