Abstract The work presented in this paper is based on an existing comprehensive formulation for rotating flexible systems. In the existing formulation the flexible degrees of freedom (d.o.f.) are represented by an analytically computed modal basis and the coupling matrices between the rigid- and the flexible-body d.o.f. are developed based on the analytical modal representation of the flexible d.o.f. In this paper, the existing formulation is generalized for rotating beams by representing the flexible d.o.f. either as physical d.o.f. of a finite element formulation or as a set of retained and internal d.o.f. of a Craig–Bampton formulation. The coupling matrices between the rigid-body rotation and the flexible d.o.f. are developed accordingly. The non-linear effects from the work done by the centrifugal forces are included in the formulation. Finite element shape functions of a beam element in a three-dimensional space and finite element shape functions for solid elements are employed for deriving the coupling terms between the rigid-body d.o.f. and the physical d.o.f. An additional transformation is required and performed when the right-body d.o.f. are coupled with the internal and the retained d.o.f. of a Craig–Bampton formulation. The coupled system of equations is solved in the time domain by combining the Newmark method for time integration and the Newton–Raphson method for solving the non-linear system of equations within each time step. Analyses are performed for a flexible rotating beam in order to validate the development. An analytical solution is compared with the new formulations that represent the rotating beam flexibility with the physical d.o.f. of beam or solid elements. The analytical solution is also compared to the formulation that represents the flexible d.o.f. in terms of retained and internal d.o.f. of a Craig–Bampton formulation. Very good correlation between the analytical and numerical results is observed.