Clear analogies between carbonyl sulfide (OCS) and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) diffusion pathways through leaves have been revealed by experimental studies with plant uptake playing an important role for the atmospheric budget of both species. Here we use atmospheric OCS to evaluate the gross primary production (GPP) of three dynamic global vegetation models (LPJ, NCAR-CLM4 and ORCHIDEE). Vegetation uptake of OCS is modeled as a linear function of GPP and LRU, the ratio of OCS to CO 2 deposition velocities to plants. New parameterizations for the non-photosynthetic sinks (oxic soils, atmospheric oxidation) and biogenic sources (oceans and anoxic soils) of OCS are also provided. Despite new large oceanic emissions, global OCS budgets created with each vegetation model show exceeding sinks by several hundreds of Gg S yr −1 . An inversion of the surface fluxes (optimization of a global scalar which accounts for flux uncertainties) led to balanced OCS global budgets, as atmospheric measurements suggest, mainly by drastic reduction (−30%) of soil and vegetation uptakes. The amplitude of variations in atmospheric OCS mixing ratios is mainly dictated by the vegetation sink over the Northern Hemisphere. This allows for bias recognition in the GPP representations of the three selected models. Main bias patterns are (i) the terrestrial GPP of ORCHIDEE at high Northern latitudes is currently over-estimated, (ii) the seasonal variations of the GPP are out of phase in the NCAR-CLM4 model, showing a maximum carbon uptake too early in spring in the northernmost ecosystems, (iii) the overall amplitude of the seasonal variations of GPP in NCAR-CLM4 is too small, and (iv) for the LPJ model, the GPP is slightly out of phase for northernmost ecosystems and the respiration fluxes might be too large in summer in the Northern Hemisphere.