We have presented an analysis to study the effect of melting with variable permeability on non-Darcy mixed convective flow over a vertical surface. The influence of thermal radiation was considered on the right hand side of energy equation. The variation of permeability in the vicinity of the solid boundary is approximated by an exponential function. The governing partial differential equations were transformed into ordinary ones using a similarity transformation and solved numerically by using Matlab bvp4c solver. The numerical results were validated by comparison with previously published results in the literature. The effects of physical parameters on the velocity, temperature and heat transfer coefficients are determined. We also tested how the variation in the variable permeability affects the physical parameters of the problem. © 2016 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier B.V. and The Society of Powder Technology Japan. All rights reserved.