In the present study, response surface methodology was deployed to optimize the removal of pigments from palm oil using activated Karaworo clay. Process variables considered for the optimization exercise include bleaching time, bleaching temperature, clay dosage and particle size while the bleaching efficiency was the response variable. A total of 30 bleaching experiments were carried out based on the conditions obtained by the central composite design of response surface methodology. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) and other statistical tests showed that a second order polynomial regression equation was suitable for fitting the experimental data. The experimental confirmation tests showed a correlation between the predicted and experimental responses (R² = 0.9757). The optimum conditions for the process parameters were obtained as: bleaching time of 2.47 hours, bleaching temperature of 124.67^oC, clay dosage of 3.26 g and particle size of 0.15 mm. Under these conditions, about 71.65% pigments were removed.