Phosphate is a worldwide environmental issue, due to possibly causing serious eutrophication and subsequently blue-green algae blooms. Sequestrating phosphate by exploitation of advanced materials with a hierarchical morphology will be an important pathway. Herein, we fabricated a new sea urchin-like zirconium(IV) oxide (Ur-Zr) using a one step facile alcoholysis solvothermal reaction for efficient phosphate removal. The as-obtained material exhibits adsorption properties in a wide range of pH conditions with the optimal pH ranging from 1.0 to 6.0; competition results reveal that the Ur-Zr displays remarkable sorption selectivity for phosphate removal with coexisting common anions (SO₄²⁻, NO₃⁻ and Cl⁻ ions) at high concentrations, which can be ascribed to the unique hierarchical morphology and strong sorption affinity between Zr–O and phosphate species. Besides, the resultant Ur-Zr also shows a gradual sorption kinetics behavior, which can be well described by the pseudo-first-order model with the maximum sorption capacity of 74.8 mg g⁻¹. Additionally, the exhausted materials can be recycled by alkaline treatment and used repeatedly. All of the results demonstrate that the sea urchin-like zirconium(IV) oxide is a competent candidate for enhanced phosphate removal.