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Soy hull can be used as a feedstock for the ethanol production due to high content of sugars (about 46% cellulose). It is a major by-product of the soybean processing industry. The primary purpose of pretreatment is to make the cellulose in the feedstock amenable to the action of the cellulase enzyme. The objectives of the study were to determine the effect of microwave pretreatment to improve the enzymatic hydrolysis of soy hull and to determine the optimum pretreatment conditions. The power level and the processing time were the parameters investigated. The samples were microwave irradiated for five power levels (10, 20, 30, 40 and 50%) with four levels of processing time (2.5, 5, 7.5 and 10 min) in the presence of water. The pretreated samples were subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis and sugars and byproducts were measured using HPLC (NREL/TP-510-42623). From the statistical analysis, it was found that microwave power level had a significant effect on the sugar recovery. The soy hull pretreated at 40% power level at 2.5 minutes processing time had 50.45, 48.44, 52.26, and 50.40% recoveries for glucose, xylose, arabinose and combined sugar respectively. No fermentation inhibitors like HMF and furfural were found in the pretreated samples. The results suggest that microwave pretreatment can be an effective pretreatment for the conversion of soy hull to ethanol.