Volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions from ecosystems to the atmosphere have been widely studied, and the importance of soil contributions to VOC fluxes has received increasing attention. We suggest that while soil VOC emissions may be important in some situations, soil uptake of VOCs by microbial degradation is likely an omnipresent process, as also recently suggested by Trowbridge et al. (2020, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JG005479). To be able to model net VOC fluxes, we need to be able to estimate both soil release and uptake processes and their drivers.