A yellow-pigmented, non-motile, Gram-stain-negative, rod-shaped bacterium, designated II4T was obtained from soil sampled at Seongnam, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea. Cells were strictly aerobic, grew optimally at 20–28 °C and hydrolysed casein. A phylogenetic analysis based on its 16S rRNA gene sequence revealed that strain II4T formed a lineage within the family Xanthomonadaceae and clustered as members of the genus Lysobacter . The closest members were Lysobacter terrae THG-A13T (97.88 % sequence similarity), Lysobacter niabensis GH34-4T (97.82 %), Lysobacter oryzae YC6269T (97.74%), Lysobacter yangpyeongensis GH19-3T (97.53 %) and Lysobacter enzymogenes ATCC 29487T (96.18 %). The principal respiratory quinone was Q-8 and the major polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol and diphosphatidylglycerol. The predominant cellular fatty acids were summed feature 9 (C16 : 0 10-methyl and/or iso-C17 : 1  ω9c) and iso-C15 : 0 and iso-C16 : 0. The DNA G+C content was 68.2 mol%. The average nucleotide identity and in silico DNA–DNA hybridization relatedness values between strain II4T and its closely related genus members with possible full genome sequences were ≤79.6 and 23.7 %, respectively. Based on genomic, chemotaxonomic, phenotypic and phylogenetic data, strain II4T represents novel species in the genus Lysobacter , for which the name Lyobacter terrestris sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is II4T (=KACC 21196T=NBRC 113956T).