A vertex coloring of a graph G is called a 2-distance coloring if any two vertices at a distance at most 2 from each other receive different colors. Suppose that G is a planar graph with a maximum degree at most 5. We prove that G admits a 2-distance 16 coloring, which improves the result given by Hou et al. (Graphs and Combinatorics 39:20, 2023).