Abstract This paper presents a new scheme of wavelet image coding, X-tree. An X-tree is a spatial hierarchical tree whose all nodes are 0 except the root node. It is the generalization of the zero tree. Based on the X-tree scheme, two new coding algorithms, the embedded X-tree approach and the general X-tree approach are proposed in the paper. Experimental results show that the coding efficiency of the proposed algorithms are obviously higher than those of the stack-run and the EZW algorithms.