Abstract.Soil workability and trafficability are frequently estimated from meteorological data. This paper discusses the importance of soil workability for crop production, and reviews the limitations of various models, especially their applicability for predicting the effects of climate change. Some models calculate the number of spring or autumn work‐days by combining meteorological and soil‐related factors. Most of these determine, either empirically or deterministically, daily soil moisture budgets from which workability is inferred. A shortcoming of this approach is that it requires critical soil moisture contents or potentials. Also there are problems with the persistence of water in the profile and with the allocation of rainfall events to specific days. Determining work‐days over seasonal periods avoids these limitations, but this approach is unsuitable for short‐term planning purposes. The value of workability models is difficult to gauge as they often apply to specific soil and climatic conditions. This limitation will increase under a changing climate. For example, soil properties, previously considered as intrinsic, may alter in a manner that invalidates some models. More work on the soil processes controlling workability is needed, and on how these will be affected by a changing