We search for lepton-flavor-violating τ decays into a lepton (electron or muon) and an f0 (980) meson using 671 fb-1 of data collected with the Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy e+ e- collider. No events are observed and we set the following 90% C.L. upper limits on the branching fraction products: B (τ- → e- f0 (980)) × B (f0 (980) → π+ π-) < 3.2 × 10- 8 and B (τ- → μ- f0 (980)) × B (f0 (980) → π+ π-) < 3.4 × 10- 8. This is the first search performed for these modes. © 2009 Elsevier B.V.