The authors discuss here the robust stabilisation of a linear time-invariant system using sliding-mode control (SMC) with the self-triggering strategy. In self/event-triggering, the control is not updated in a periodic manner like in classical sampled-date system. The SMC with self-triggering mechanism achieves robust stability with increased control execution time period. In comparison to an event-triggering, the self-triggering technique does not require additional dedicated hardware for continuous state measurement to determine the next possible triggering instant. Here, a strategy is developed to find the next possible triggering instant using past sampled state information only and guaranteed that even in the presence of disturbance the closed-loop system is stable. It has been shown that the system performance is improved in terms of the number of the control updates and hence the control execution requires less resource. The numerical simulation results are provided to validate the theoretical analysis. © The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2015.