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This work reports the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye using SnS₂ and SnO₂ nanoparticles obtained from a solvothermal decomposition (in oleylamine) and pyrolysis (in a furnace) processes, respectively, of the diphenyltin(IV) <i>p</i>-methylphenyldithiocarbamate complex. The complex, which was used as a single-source precursor and represented as <b>[(C₆H₅)₂Sn(L)₂]</b> (L = <i>p</i>-methylphenyldithiocarbamato), was synthesized and characterized using various spectroscopic techniques and elemental analysis. The structural properties and morphology of the as-synthesized nanoparticles were studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). UV-visible spectroscopy was used to study the optical property. The hexagonal phase of SnS₂ and tetragonal SnO₂ nanoparticles were identified, which exhibited varying sizes of hexagonal platelets and rod-like morphologies, respectively. The direct band gap energies of both materials, estimated from their absorption spectra, were 2.31 and 3.79 eV for SnS₂ and SnO₂, respectively. The photocatalytic performances of the SnS₂ and SnO₂ nanoparticle, studied using methylene blue (MB) as a model dye pollutant under light irradiation, showed that SnO₂ nanoparticles exhibited a degradation efficiency of 48.33% after 120 min reaction, while the SnS₂ nanoparticles showed an efficiency of 62.42% after the same duration of time. The higher efficiency of SnS₂ compared to the SnO₂ nanoparticles may be attributed to the difference in the structural properties, morphology and nature of the material’s band gap energy.