The combination of photocatalyst and biochar is an effective strategy to improve the overall photocatalytic activity, but it is still a challenge to find photocatalyst with excellent photocatalytic activity and biochar with large surface and rich oxygen functional groups. In this study, a novel CS-biochar/ZnO/NiO composite with adsorption-photocatalytic performance was constructed using chitosan as biochar source, and exploited for visible-light-driven photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline (TC) and Congo red (CR). The superior photocatalytic activity of CS-biochar/ZnO/NiO than pristine ZnO, NiO and CS-biochar/ZnO under visible light, and 63 %-CS/ZnO/NiO composite has the best photocatalytic activity. The photodegradation efficiency for CR was 94.5 % within 100 min, and the apparent rate constant (k) was 0.0206 min−1, which is about 1.87 and 3.89 times that ZnO and NiO, respectively. For TC, the photodegradation efficiency was 90 % within 45 min, and k was 0.0377 min−1, which is about 1.74 and 2.86 times that bare NiO and ZnO, respectively, which attribute to the synergistic effect between ZnO/NiO and CS-biochar improved the activity of photocatalysts. This work presents a straightforward approach for improving photocatalytic antibiotic and dye degradation through the construction of bifunctional "hybrid" material, which have great potential for application in the removal of contaminants.