Rare earth elements have been widely utilized in material manufacturing to enhance properties in various ways. In order to obtain the WC-10Co4Cr coating with uniform distribution of rare earths, CeOsub.2-modified powder was prepared by mixing 1 wt.% nano-sized CeOsub.2 during the initial ball-milling of the powder fabrication process. Bare and CeOsub.2-modified WC-10Co4Cr coatings were deposited via high velocity oxygen fuel spraying to investigate the impact of CeOsub.2 modification on the coating's microstructure, mechanical properties and abrasive wear performance. The results show that the addition of CeOsub.2 increased the interface energy, inhibiting the formation of the Cosub.3Wsub.3C phase during the powder sintering process, as well as the Wsub.2C phase and CoCr alloy during the high-velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) process. This led to a significantly decreased porosity and higher concentration of undissolved Cr-rich areas. The microhardness and fracture toughness of the CeOsub.2-modified coating were 1230 HVsub.0.3 and 5.77 MPamsup.1/2, respectively. The abrasive wear resistance of the CeOsub.2-modified coating was only 70.9% of that of the unmodified coating. Due to the weak cohesive strength between WC and Cr, Cr-rich areas were preferentially removed, resulting in an increased wear rate in the CeOsub.2-modified coating.