We studied diffuse reflectance spectra of nanostructured m-HfO2 powder measured at room temperature. Kubelka–Munk formalism has been applied to analyze features of the intrinsic absorption edge. We found that the observed spectral dependencies are formed by two types of the allowed interband transitions. The widths for direct and indirect bandgaps of 5.61 and 5.31 eV, respectively, have been estimated.