Abstract. A size-resolved particle dry deposition scheme is developed for inclusion in large-scale air quality and climate models where the size distribution and fate of atmospheric aerosols is of concern. The "resistance" structure is similar to what is proposed by Zhang et al. (2001), while a new "surface" deposition velocity (or surface resistance) is derived by simplification of a one-dimensional aerosol transport model (Petroff et al., 2008b, 2009). Compared to Zhang et al.'s model, the present model accounts for the leaf size, shape and area index as well as the height of the vegetation canopy. Consequently, it is more sensitive to the change of land covers, particularly in the accumulation mode (0.1–1 micron). A drift velocity is included to account for the phoretic effects related to temperature and humidity gradients close to liquid and solid water surfaces. An extended comparison of this model with experimental evidence is performed over typical land covers such as bare ground, grass, coniferous forest, liquid and solid water surfaces and highlights its adequate prediction. The predictions of the present model differ from Zhang et al.'s model in the fine mode, where the latter tends to over-estimate in a significant way the particle deposition, as measured by various investigators or predicted by the present model. The present development is thought to be useful to modellers of the atmospheric aerosol who need an adequate parameterization of aerosol dry removal to the earth surface, described here by 26 land covers. An open source code is available in Fortran90.