Abstract: In a system and method for cleaning and recovering a solid catalyst, a solvent is added to a slurry comprising the catalyst and residual hydrocarbons. A portion of the residual hydrocarbons and the solvent are separated from the slurry, and the solvent addition and separating steps are repeated until a desired amount of the hydrocarbons have been removed. The solvent is finally removed from the catalyst using a stripping gas to recover a cleaned catalyst. In preferred embodiments, the slurry comprises a Fischer-Tropsch solid catalyst; the slurry exits a slurry bubble reactor, or both. In an embodiment, the solvent comprises naphtha; the residual hydrocarbons comprise waxy hydrocarbons; and one of the separation steps comprises filtration. In an embodiment, the repeating of the solvent addition and separating steps is carried out in a plurality of filters operated in series.