The aim of this study was to examine the potential of CoCr2O4, produced by co-precipitation method to degrade the hazardous dye Congo red (CR) when exposed to solar light irradiation. The as-prepared spinel was characterized by X-ray diffraction, attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform, BET, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron-microscopy with integrated EDX, and UV–Vis Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy. The experimental tests found that CoCr2O4 has a direct transition with a band gap (Eg) of 1.74 eV. Curiously, the normal spinel crystallizing in a cubic symmetry exhibits n-type conduction and to confirm such type behavior of CoCr2O4, electrochemical characterization was undertaken to determine the flat band potential using the Mott-Schottky plot of the interfacial capacitance. The pseudo-second order model was used to fit the kinetic data of CR adsorption. The results of the photodegradation tests showed that n- CoCr2O4 nanoparticles facilitated the separation of photogenerated electrons/holes (e-/h+) pairs by decreasing the recombination process. This increased the overall efficiency of the photocatalytic process, up to be 94% in oxidizing the CR molecules after 180 min with a low catalyst dose of 0.2 g/L. A reaction mechanism is suggested based on a potential band diagram to explain the photocatalytic degradation of the dye onto CoCr2O4 surface.