A simple, mild and efficient strategy for selective hydrolytic cleavage of the N-tert-butyloxycarbonyl (Boc) group is devised using a protic ionic liquid as an efficient catalyst. The deprotection reaction proceeded well for N-Boc protected aromatic, heteroaromatic, aliphatic compounds, and chiral amino acid esters and peptides. A wide range of labile protecting groups such as tert-butyl ester, tert-butyl ether, benzyloxycarbonyl (Cbz), TBDMS, O-Boc and S-Boc remained unaffected under the reaction conditions.