Abstract.To meet the global food demand in the coming decades, crop yields per unit area must increase. This can only be achieved by a further intensification of existing cropping systems and will require even higher inputs of N fertilisers, which may result in increased losses of nitrous oxide (N 2 O) from cropped soils. Enhanced efficiency fertilisers (EEFs) have been promoted as a potential strategy to mitigate N 2 O emissions and improve nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) in cereal cropping systems. However, only limited data are currently available on the use of different EEF products in sub-tropical cereal systems. A field experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of three different EEFs on N 2 O emissions, NUE and yield in a sub-tropical summer cereal cropping system in Australia. Over an entire year soil N 2 O fluxes were monitored continuously (3 h sampling frequency) with a fully-automated measuring system. The experimental site was fertilised with different nitrogen (N) fertilisers applied at 170 kg N ha -1 , namely conventional urea (Urea), urea with the nitrification inhibitor 3,4-dimethylpyrazole phosphate (DMPP), polymer-coated urea (PCU), and urea with the nitrification inhibitor nitrapyrin (Nitrapyrin). Nitrous oxide emissions were highly episodic and mainly controlled by heavy rainfall events within two months of planting and fertiliser N application. Annual N 2 O emissions in the four treatments amounted to 2.31, 0.40, 0.69 and 1.58 kg N 2 O-N ha -1 year -1 for Urea, DMPP, PCU and Nitrapyrin treatments, respectively, while unfertilised plots produced an average of 0.16 kg N 2 O-N ha -1 year -1 . Two of the tested products (DMPP and PCU) were found to be highly effective, decreasing annual N 2 O losses by 83% and 70%, respectively, but did not affect yield or NUE. This study shows that EEFs have a high potential to decrease N 2 O emissions from sub-tropical cereal cropping systems. More research is needed to assess if the increased costs of EEFs can be compensated by lower fertiliser application rates and/or yield increases.