Extracting the trapped oil into the pores is still a massive challenging. In this work, multiwalled carbon nanotubes were utilized to investigate the influence of the nanofluid�s flow rate on the oil recovery in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) stage. At the optimum conditions, comparative study was conducted to figure out the impact of EM waves on the recovery efficiency. The experimental study proved that 2 mL/min is the optimum flow rate for the utilized fluid. EM waves could enhance the recovered oil in EOR stage by 24.5 ROIP. The increment was ascribed to the extraordinary role of EM waves in increasing the viscosity of the nanofluid. © 2019, The Author(s).