We have performed systematic first-principles calculations to predict the interaction between transition metal (TM) solutes and hydrogen in the interstitial site as well as the vacancy in tungsten. We showed that the site preference of the hydrogen atom is significantly influenced by the solute atoms, which can be traced to the charge density perturbation in the vicinity of the solute atom. The solute-H interactions are mostly attractive except for Re, which can be well understood in terms of the competition between the chemical and elastic interactions. The chemical interaction dominates the solute-H interaction for the TM solutes with a large atomic volume and small electronegativity compared to tungsten, while the elastic interaction is primarily responsible for the solute-H interaction for the TM solutes with a small atomic volume and large electronegativity relative to tungsten. The presence of a hydrogen atom near the solute atom has a negative effect on the binding of other hydrogen atoms. The large positive binding energies among the solute, vacancy and hydrogen suggest that they would easily form a defect cluster in tungsten, where the solute-vacancy and vacancy-H interaction contribute greatly while the solute-H interaction contributes a little. Our result provides a sound theoretical explanation for recent experimental phenomena of hydrogen retention in the tungsten alloy and further recommends a suitable W–Re–Ta ternary alloy for possible plasma-facing materials (PFMs) including the consideration of the hydrogen retention.