The estimation of total evaporation plays a vital role in water resources monitoring and management, especially in water-limited environments. Evapotranspiration (ETa) is not only an important component in the land surface energy balance, but also major component in the water cycle and an important parameter in water resources management. Conventional methods for ET estimation which use meteorological data can only be used to estimate ETo at certain location, but not at a larger scale. This limitation can be overcome by using a combination of ground based and remote sensing data in a surface energy balance model. In this study, the annual ET for the Tana basin, Ethiopia is estimated, using MODIS images, weather station data and the surface energy balance model SEBS. During the primary data collection, thirty six MODIS images acquired during January 2016, 2017 up to December 2016 and 2017 for two year were identified covering the study area. The daily metrological data at Bahir Dar station was collected from January to December 2016 and 2017. During the preliminary stage the pre-processing of MODIS image was carried out using MODIS re-projection tool and ILWIS software. The broad band albedo, surface temperature and emissivity and NDVI were preprocessed form satellite data. The annual actual ET from SEBS in the year 2016 and 2017 was 1616 mm and 1511mm respectively. The spatial and temporal variation of ET over the Basin was also evaluated. The actual ET from SEBS was smaller than the P-M ETo during the dry and hot season and larger in wet and cloudy season