A practical and efficient approach to incorporate hydrogen in SiC is presented. Hydrogenation was performed in a hydrogen plasma using two different plasma etching systems operating in reactive ion etching (RIE) and inductively coupled plasma (ICP) modes at different RF powers and pressures. Treatment of SiC samples in the ICP system was shown to cause a significantly deeper hydrogen penetration than what was previously reported for hydrogenation in an RIE system. The difference is attributed to an enhanced diffusivity of hydrogen in SiC due to higher temperature during ICP processing. The new process can be used for defect passivation at the interface, as well as deeper in the bulk of SiC crystal, without sustaining any lattice damage that is inherent for the ion implantation based hydrogenation.