With increasing agricultural and industrial use of rare earth elements (REEs), input of REEs into the pedosphere has risen in parallel. Since total REE budgets for soils in Germany are mainly unknown, this pilot study investigates the concentrations of REEs in three loess soil profiles under agricultural land use in the Wetterau region, Germany. There were no significant REE applications in the past, so the presented data can be considered as background concentrations of REEs in soils. In addition to the total REE contents (aqua regia digestion), potentially plant‐available (EDTA) and at actual conditions available, mobile (NH4NO3) REEs have been determined for each horizon. Interactions between REE availability and properties of soils are explained after assessing several chemical and physical properties. The results reveal a wide range of total REE contents, ranging from 222 to 423 mg kg–1. With 10.1% of total REE amounts, the potentially plant‐available proportions of REEs are generally low. In contrast, yttrium, which showed high available proportion of 24.8%, was found to be comparable with Cd. Cerium is the most abundant REE in aqua regia digests, whereas only small amounts in the potentially plant‐available fraction were found. Thus negative cerium anomalies could be concluded concerning its potential availability. Generally, bioavailability of REE had significant correlations between clay contents and Fe and Mn oxides for the majority of REEs. Due to moderately high pH (CaCl2) in soils (average 6.6) the mobile fraction for most of the elements was not detectible.

Rare earth elements (REEs) are widely used in industry and the entry of REEs into the pedosphere is assumed.