Approximate analytical solutions of the Dirac equation with the trigonometric Pöschl–Teller (tPT) potential are obtained for arbitrary spin-orbit quantum number κ using an approximation scheme to deal with the spin-orbit coupling terms κ(κ±1)r^-2. In the presence of exact spin and pseudo-spin (p-spin) symmetric limitation, the bound state energy eigenvalues and the corresponding two-component wave functions of the Dirac particle moving in the field of attractive and repulsive tPT potential are obtained using the parametric generalization of the Nikiforov–Uvarov (NU) method. The case of nonrelativistic limit is studied too.