Bismuth vanadate is a promising visible-light driven photocatalyst due to its convenient band gap value and position. However, the efficiency of BiVO4 is very low due to high recombination rates. In this work, a comparative study between pristine and Nb-modified BiVO4 films was made. Modified BiVO4 has shown a hierarchical nanostructure, but its energy band gap remained equal to pristine BiVO4. The IPCE efficiency of Nb-BiVO4 increased importantly. The ideal nominal content of Nb(V) in BiVO4 was 10 at% At such atomic rate, the quantity of photoelectrochemically produced hydrogen by water splitting significantly increased compared to pristine BiVO4. Photocatalytic degradation of organic compounds by Nb-modified bismuth vanadate films also exhibited higher oxidation rate. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.