Engineered cementitious composites (ECC) have attracted significant attention, in the civil engineering domain, due to their appealing characteristics. A main factor governing ECC’s performance is the steel-to-concrete bond behavior. However, there is yet dire need to mend the knowledge gap in this venue. This study aims to investigate the influence of the ECC associated traits onto the aforementioned bond behavior: compressive strength, bonded length-to-rebar ratio, rebar diameter, ECC cover thickness (and confinement level around steel rebar at bonded length region). To fulfill this purpose, eight beam-end specimens were prepared and tested. Results showed that (i) ECC compressive strength had the greatest impact on the ultimate bond stress; followed by (ii) the bonded length-to-diameter ratio, and (iii) the cover thickness (whilst adding steel stirrups). The latter’s performance was marginal. In descending order, the influence amounted to 16.5 %, 12 % and 3.5 %, respectively, for a variant range of input-parameter change. As regards the failure mode: the superior tensile properties of ECC led to the occurrence of a pull-out scheme rather than the anticipated splitting mode of failure. This diminished the role of cover thickness and stirrups, in this regards. Finally, new models are developed to predict the bond-slip behavior for ECC-to-steel rebar. The developed models demonstrated adequate agreement with experimental results. •ECC is a novel material that attains superior behavior.•Bond behavior between ECC and RFT is main factor that affects element behavior.•The proposed models provide good prediction for bond strength.