A low temperature precipitation method was employed for the synthesis of green emitting orthorhombic BaMgE4:Ce3+,Tb3+ phosphors. We investigated the structural, photoluminescence (PL) and energy transfer properties of the BaMgF4:Ce3+,Tb3+ phosphor. The PL emission spectrum of BaMgF4:Ce3+ shows two unresolved peaks at 315 nm and 336 nm, assigned to the lowest 5d level to the two J-multiplets of the 4f(1) configuration of Ce3+. Characteristic emission of Tb3+ was observed at 546 nm which comes in the green region of the visible spectrum. The Ce co-doped BaMgF4:Tb3+ phosphor show strong PL emission in the green region, which is due to the resonance energy transfer from Ce3+ to Tb3+. Further, we have calculated the energy transfer parameters and discussed the energy transfer mechanism in detail. The thermal stability and quantum yield of the prepared phosphor was also studied. The obtained results reveal that BaMgF4:Ce3+,Tb3+ phosphor can be considered as a potential green emitting phosphor for optoelectronic applications. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.