The Mōtū River is a major waterway in the eastern part of the North Island of New Zealand.

It rises south-west of Mātāwai in the Gisborne District, on the south-western side of the Raukūmara Range, and heads roughly northwards to the Pacific Ocean.

It empties into the eastern Bay of Plenty at Houpoto, between Hāwai and Ōmāio, 31 km (19 mi) north-east of Ōpōtiki.

[1] The river passes through mostly uninhabited hill country, very steep and still thickly covered in rainforest.

The first modern traverse of the river, from the Mōtū Falls to its mouth, was in 1920 by the Fisher brothers and S. Thorburn, and this was re-enacted in 2013 by Kevin Biggar and Jamie Fitzgerald in series 2 of the "First Crossings" TV series.