ABSTRACT Vertisols are important soils in the agricultural activity of Ethiopia. Their wide distribution and erratic crop responses to recommended phosphorus (P) fertilizer application justify the attempt for determining the P status and most suitable P availability estimation on these soils. In the present study, the forms of soil P and their relationship with different indices of available P and P uptake by wheat grown under greenhouse were evaluated. Total P, organic P, seven indices of available soil P, and fractions of soil inorganic P were determined from surface soil samples of ten Ethiopian central highland Vertisols. The amount of active inorganic P fractions i.e. water-soluble and loosely bound P, Al-phosphates (Al-P), Fe-phosphates (Fe-P) and Ca-phosphates (Ca-P) found to contain; < 0.5, 4–33, 4–66, and 15–73 mg P kg−1, respectively. As for the different indices of soil available P, the extraction efficiency of the tested methods was found to decrease in the order: ammonium oxalate > Olsen > Mehlich3 > Bray1 > ammonium acetate > ammonium bicarbonate-diethylene triamine pentaacetic acid (AB-DTPA) > 0.01 M calcium chloride (CaCl2). Olsen-P (r = 0.83) and AB-DTPA-P (r = 0.83) showed significant (P < .001) correlation with the P uptake by wheat and the active inorganic P fractions (Al-P and Fe-P). Moreover, multiple regression analysis indicated that the variation of P extracted by Olsen and AB-DTPA methods were best predicted by Fe-P (84%) and Al-P (68%), respectively. Consequently, Olsen and AB-DTPA methods were found to be most suitable for determining wheat available P on vertisols of central highlands of Ethiopia.