A novel bagasse‐based solid acid catalyst was successfully prepared through sulfonation of incompletely carbonized bagasse. A range of conditions for producing the catalyst were investigated, and the optimized catalyst, produced under carbonization at 648 K for 0.5 h and sulfonation at 423 K for 15 h, showed excellent catalytic activity and resulted in around 95 % yield of methyl oleate. Its activity was not only substantially greater than that of niobic acid and Amberlyst‐15, but also comparable to or superior to that of catalysts made from pure starch or glucose, respectively. Additionally, the bagasse‐derived catalyst could be repeatedly employed for at least eight cycles and still retained around 90 % of its original activity, exhibiting excellent operational stability. Furthermore, the catalyst efficiently converted waste cooking oils with 38.6 wt % free fatty acids into biodiesel and afforded a high yield of about 93.8 % within 12 h. These results clearly show that the bagasse‐derived catalyst is economic, eco‐friendly, and promising for biodiesel production from low‐cost feedstocks and may find wide applications.