ABSTRACT We present a detailed analysis of the spectral properties of the black hole transient GRS 1716−249, based on the archival Swift and NuSTAR observations taken during the outburst of this source in 2016–2017. The first six NuSTAR observations show that the source is in a canonical hard state, where the spectrum is dominated by a power-law continuum. The seventh NuSTAR observation is taken during the intermediate state where both a disc thermal component and a power-law continuum are shown. All of our observations show a broad emission-line feature in the iron band and a Compton hump above 10 keV. We model the broad-band spectra using a high-density disc reflection model, where the soft X-ray emission in the hard state is interpreted as part of the disc reflection component. This model enables us to constrain the disc density parameter of GRS 1716−249 in the range of 1019–1020 cm−3. We only obtain an upper limit of the inner disc radius using high-density disc reflection spectroscopy and the results indicate either a non-truncated disc or a slightly truncated disc with Rin ≲ 20 rg.