We report a novel human leukocyte antigen (HLA)‐B allele, HLA‐B*5312. Compared with HLA‐B*530101, there is one silent substitution at nucleotide 438 and two non‐synonymous substitutions at nucleotides 431 and 440, causing a change of the amino acid sequence (Asn→Ser at codon 77 and Ile→Thr at codon 80, respectively) within the Bw4 epitope. In contrast to the published sequences (IMGT/HLA Database, version 2.16.0, January 2007), we found that HLA‐B*530101 had a C instead of a T at nucleotide −221, whereas HLA‐B*350101 had a C instead of an A at nucleotide 2992. According to our sequencing results, HLA‐B*5312 resembles HLA‐B*350101 regarding its sequence of the untranslated regions. HLA‐B*5312 may have been the result of a double crossing over event during which HLA‐B*350101 adopted a Bw4 motif.