Abstract Climate change has been reported to pose negative effects on agriculture globally. Adoption of Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) practices such as using improved seeds has been widely recognized as a promising and successful alternative to minimize the adverse impacts. This study aimed to assess factors influencing the adoption of Improved Oil Palm Variety (IOPV) known as Tenera in Kigoma Rural District of Tanzania. Data were collected from a sample of 166 palm oil smallholder farmers found in three wards namely: Bitale, Mwandiga and Mahembe. Data were collected through interview, documentary review, and observation. IBM SPSS Version 20.0 was used in data analysis, whereby both descriptive and inferential (binary logistic regression) analyses were employed. Results showed that 79.5% of the respondents were aware of IOPV and 47.6% of them have adopted it. Findings revealed further that, age, education level, soil quality, rainfall, nature of technology, land ownership, and proximity to homestead significantly (p<0.05) influenced the adoption of IOPV. The study concluded that various socio-economic factors significantly influenced the adoption of IOPV. Moreover, the adoption of IOPV among smallholder farmers in the study area is still low and it is practiced in small farms. The study recommends that more sensitization campaigns are required to raise farmers' awareness towards IOPV to increase its adoption and ultimately increase production for more income and consequently enhance their capacity to offset climate change effects on agriculture.