The concept of biomass steam gasification offers platform for production (i) of hydrogen, (ii) hydrocarbons and (iii) value added chemicals. Majority of these developments are either in nascent or in pilot/demonstration stage. In this context, there exists potential for hydrogen production via biomass steam gasification. Gaseous products of biomass steam gasification consist of large percentage of CO, CH4 and other hydrocarbons, which can be converted to hydrogen through water-gas-shift reaction, steam reforming and cracking respectively. Although there are many previous research works showing the potential of production of hydrogen from biomass in a two stage process, challenges remain in extended biomass and char gasification so as to reduce the amount of carbon in the residual char as well as improve conversion of heavy hydrocarbon condensates to hydrogen rich gas. In the current work, the characteristics of biomass steam gasification in an in-house designed rotary tubular helical coil reactor at temperatures less than 850 °C, in the presence of superheated steam, were presented. The objectives were to obtain high carbon conversion in the primary biomass steam gasification step (upstream) and high product gas yield and hydrogen yield in the secondary fixed bed catalytic step (downstream). The influence of temperature, steam-to-biomass ratio and residence time on product gas yield in the rotary tubular helical coil gasifier was studied in detail using one of the abundantly available biomass sources in India-rice husk. Further, enhancement of product gas yield and hydrogen yield in a fixed bed catalytic converter was studied and optimized. In the integrated pathway, a maximum gas yield of 1.92 Nm3/kg moisture-free biomass was obtained at a carbon conversion efficiency of 92%. The maximum hydrogen purity achieved under steady state conditions was 53% by volume with a hydrogen yield of 91.5 g/kg of moisture-free biomass. This study substantiates overall feasibility of production of high value hydrogen from locally available biomass by superheated steam gasification followed by catalytic conversion. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.