Tartrazine removal from tap water was evaluated using hydrodynamic cavitation with an orifice plate (2 mm thick, 9 orifices of 1 mm diameter) with a treatment time of 30 min, using the Taguchi L9 method with a signal-to-noise (S/N) criterion of larger-the-better. The factors evaluated were the inlet pressure to the orifice plate (2.5, 3.0, and 4.0 bar), the pH of the solution (3, 4, and 5), and the initial tartrazine concentration (5, 10, and 20 mg L⁻¹). pH was the only statistically significant factor (p = 0.012), contributing 96.12 % to the total variation in the S/N ratio. The maximum color removal observed in the experimental design was 78.58 % (3.0 bar, pH 3, and 10 mg L⁻¹). The optimal conditions determined by the Taguchi additive model (3.0 bar, pH 3, 5 mg L⁻¹) were validated through confirmatory testing, achieving a removal of 72.47 % with a deviation of 1.34 % from the predicted S/N value (37.70 dB vs. 37.20 dB experimental), thus confirming its validity. The tartrazine degradation process followed pseudo-first-order kinetics with a rate constant k₁ = 0.05634 min⁻¹ (R² = 0.9081). These results position hydrodynamic cavitation with an orifice plate as an efficient technology for treating water contaminated with azo dyes, with potential applications in drinking water treatment systems and municipal wastewater treatment plants.