 <p>Using java 8 shouldn't give this problem but it did for me</p> <p>I created my jar initially from Eclipse Export -> Runnable Jar and it was fine. When I moved to Maven it failed with the above. </p> <p>Comparing the two jars showed that nothing fx related was packaged with the jar (as I'd expect) but that the Eclipse generated manifest had <code>Class-Path: .</code> in it. Getting maven to package the jar with the following worked for me (with Java 8)</p> <pre><code> &lt;build&gt; &lt;plugins&gt; &lt;plugin&gt; &lt;groupId&gt;org.apache.maven.plugins&lt;/groupId&gt; &lt;artifactId&gt;maven-jar-plugin&lt;/artifactId&gt; &lt;configuration&gt; &lt;archive&gt; &lt;manifest&gt; &lt;addClasspath&gt;true&lt;/addClasspath&gt; &lt;mainClass&gt;com.pg.fxapplication.Main&lt;/mainClass&gt; &lt;/manifest&gt; &lt;manifestEntries&gt; &lt;Class-Path&gt;.&lt;/Class-Path&gt; &lt;/manifestEntries&gt; &lt;/archive&gt; &lt;/configuration&gt; &lt;/plugin&gt; &lt;/plugins&gt; &lt;/build&gt; </code></pre>