Palladium is an industrially important precious metal and its recovery is of utmost significance in miscellaneous applications. Polystyrene divinylbenzene resins are known for their high surface area and porosity to effectively capture metal ions after suitable modification. In this work, we report the anchoring of 2-mercaptobenzothiazole onto the amine functionalized Amberlite XAD-1180 resin for the effective adsorption of palladium. The macroreticular resin serves as a good host to welcome palladium (guest) and the proof of concept was established comprehensively using FT-IR, SEM, EDX and optical imaging analysis. The Langmuir adsorption capacity of the functionalized resin for Pd2+ acquired through the linear isotherm model was found to be 50.00mgg−1. Kinetics of the adsorption process synchronized well with the pseudo-second order model and furthermore the exergonic and endothermic nature of the adsorption process was quantified through the negative free energy and positive enthalpy values. Regeneration of the resin surface was done using thiourea and the method was tested in recovering palladium from a spent catalyst containing 5% Pd on activated carbon.