Abstract The heat flux deposition on the divertor targets with neon impurity injection has been investigated for EAST tokamak with the help of three-dimensional (3D) edge transport code EMC3-EIRENE. The parameter studies of the upstream electron density, neon impurity injection flux and injected neon atom energy have been conducted to check their impacts on the extent of the toroidal asymmetry of heat load distributions. It is found that high upstream electron density leads to an effective mitigation of heat flux deposition and more significant toroidal asymmetry of heat load distribution. Further, the toroidal asymmetry of heat load distribution increases with neon impurity injection flux. However, a weak dependence of heat load distribution on the neon impurity injection energy is obtained.