Display omitted •Local Joule heating between contacted nanoparticles was proposed for catalysis.•Catalyst surface can be precisely heated by local Joule heating for reactions.•Hydrocarbon was effectively burned off by the local Joule heating of Sb doped SnO2.•The strategy consumed one order lower energy than the external heating catalysis. Most industrial catalytic reactions are achieved by external heating and catalysts are entirely heated to offer enough thermal energy to surface active sites. However, there is an inherent drawback that most input energy is dissipated into the bulk while minor is donated to the surface, leading to high energy waste. Here, we proposed a so-called local Joule heating method via passing an electric current through packed catalyst nanoparticles with a large contact resistance, which can generate sufficient heat to target at the surface region. We selected hydrocarbon combustion, a common way to eliminate unburned pollutants, as a probe reaction and used the conductive antimony-doped tin oxide (ATO) as a model catalyst. Compared with traditional external heating, this method consumed one order lower energy input, reduced the macroscopically average temperature for same conversion by ∼100 °C, improved the durability with smaller activity loss within 100 h operation, and suppressed water poisoning effect by ∼60 %. Also, the combustion was sparked in seconds by pulsing electric current into the catalyst bed, allowing an application in prompt treatment of leaked hydrocarbons. The local Joule heating between contacted nanoparticles, which could focus thermal energy on catalyst surface, is prospective to improve catalysis efficiency.