It is unclear whether the mechanisms that are involved in the recycling of endocytic receptors from endosomes to the plasma membrane require multisubunit tethering complexes. Bonifacino and colleagues now identify a tethering complex, which they term endosome-associated recycling protein (EARP), that is involved in endocytic recycling. EARP is structurally related to the Golgi-associated retrograde protein (GARP) complex, and both complexes comprise the ANG2, VPS52 and VPS53 subunits. However, the complexes differ in their fourth subunit: EARP contains syndetin, whereas GARP contains VPS54. The authors found that syndetin and VPS54 specify the localization of the EARP and GARP complexes to RAB4-positive recycling endosomes and the trans-Golgi network, respectively. EARP was also shown to interact with the SNARE protein syntaxin 6 to promote recycling of the transferrin receptor.