During the microbial treatment of a sandy model soil artificially contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), a large residual pollution was found. The remainig PAHs were sorbed into the micropores of the soil and were therefore not bioavailable. Using a lab-scale precolator, the microbially pretreated soil was subjected to aftertreatment with surfactants with the aim of further degradation of its pollution. Two commercial nonionic surfatants of the polyethoxylate type, Präwozell F1214/5 N and Sapogenat T-300, were used. The surfactants differ both in their physicochemical properties (CMC value, PAH solubilization capacity, adsorption onto soil) and in their microbial degradability. During aftertreatment under permanently aerobic conditions, only a weak PAH accumulation in the liquid phase was observed, which was due to a low solubilization rate as well as to simultaneous microbial degradation of the dissolved PAHs. Temporary anaerobiosis successfully suppressed the microbial degradation of both the surfactant and the solubilized PAHs, resulting in a more intensive PAH accumulation. But the PAH content of the soil - the essential criterion for evaluating the efficiency of surfactant application - was not decreased to a larger extent with surfactants than without them. To find out why the surfactants failed to act, the surfactant and hydrocarbon distribution among the liquid and solid phases was studied in mixtures of phenantherne-spiked solis and Präwozell-containig liquids; at heavy phenanthrene loading, the aqueous phase was saturated with PAH; at weak loading, it was unsaturated. Model-aided data analysis showed that the soil may contain PAH in two fractions: strongly sorbed into soil pores and, in the case of heavy loading, also weakly attached to the soil surface. The latter is easily extractable, resulting in a PAH-saturated liquid, while strongly adsorbed PAH is only partially dissolved due to competition between the micelles and the soil pores for the PAH. The microbially pretreated soil contains only strongly bound PAHs, which are as difficult to extract by surfactants as they are poorly accessible for microbes.