An analysis has been carried out for the characteristics of non-uniform melting heat transfer in the boundary layer flow of nanofluid past a stretching sheet. Water is treated as a base fluid and copper as a nanoparticle. An incompressible fluid fills the porous space. Effects of viscous dissipation and Joule heating are also examined. Fluid is electrically conducting in the presence of applied magnetic field. Appropriate transformations reduce the nonlinear partial differential system to ordinary differential system. Convergent series solutions are computed for the velocity and temperature. Effects of different parameters on the velocity and temperature profiles are shown and analyzed. It is revealed that an increase in the melting parameter increases the velocity and decreases the temperature. Impact of different parameters on skin friction coefficient and Nusselt number are computed through numerical values. It is concluded that temperature gradient at the surface increases for higher Hartman number and nanoparticle volume fraction. (C) 2016 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. and The Society of Powder Technology Japan. All rights reserved.