Analysis of herbicides sorption behavior in soil is critical in predicting their fate and possible harmful side effects in the environment. Application of polar imidazolinone herbicides is growing in tropical agricultural fields. Imidazolinones have high leaching potential and are persistent. In this study, adsorption�desorption of imazapic and imazapyr herbicides were evaluated in different types of Malaysian agricultural soils. Effects of soil parameters were also investigated on the soils� sorption capacities. The adsorption data fitted best to Freundlich isotherm (R2 > 0.991). The herbicides adsorptions were physical and spontaneous processes as �G values were negative and below 40 kJ/mol. The adsorption correlated positively with clay content, total organic carbon (TOC) content, and cation exchange capacity (CEC). There were strong negative correlations between hysteresis index and these factors indicating their importance in imidazolinones immobilization and, thus, their pollution reduction in the environment. © 2019, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.