Good urban land governance is the key requirement for sustainable urban development. Good governance in land administration primarily refers to the government is well-managed, inclusive, and results in desirable outcome. Land governance is the legal structures and decision-making processes concerning access to land and its use, and the implementation of such decisions. This study aimed to assess the challenges to practice good governance in urban land administration; the case of Debre Markos city. Specifically, this research explored major challenges related to core elements of urban good governance. Concerning the methodology, mixed research approach was employed to achieve the objectives of this study. Primary data was collected by using questionnaire, interview an FGD’s and secondary data sources such literatures and documents of data were used. Convenience sampling method was used to select sample respondents based on accessibility and availability of target population at a given study area. Descriptive analyses were employed to analyse the collected data by using narrations, tables, figures and percentages. The findings of this study revealed that lack of public participation, weak coordination among stakeholders and implementation capacity, lack of accountability and transparency, absence of strong monitoring and evaluation mechanisms and corruption, lack of responsiveness, less public awareness, absence of qualified man power, awareness gaps on the rules, regulations and policies, lack of technologies, lack of effective and speedy service delivery, and lack of check and balance systems are the major challenges to practice urban good governance in the study area. Strengthening and making clear rules and regulations, technologies, create an opportunity for public participation on decision making, make transparency and accountability, being effective and equitable, promote consensus oriented and rule of law, being responsiveness are suggested as recommendations.