Although carbonylation of aryl halides is widely applied in synthesis, heterogeneous catalysts for this transformation are scarce. In order to heterogeneously catalyze the amidocarbonylation of bromoarenes, a polymer-supported catalytic system was assembled from Pd(dba)(2) and a polymer-bound diphosphine chelate, prepared via solid-phase synthesis from serinol. The system efficiently converts aryl bromides into carboxamides in a reaction with CO and aliphatic or aromatic amines. Comparison with other supported phosphine ligands demonstrated the superiority of the chelate diphosphine structure. Remarkably, partial complexation of the polymer-tethered ligating sites with Pd forms notably better catalytic systems than the full complexation. The reactivity pattern of the catalytic system points to the oxidative addition as the rate-determining step of the catalytic cycle. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.