In this paper, the desiccation shrinkage and cracking of soils are studied in the framework of the extended finite element method (XFEM). The XFEM is introduced first, then, the results of existing desiccation experiments of soils are introduced and analysed, the parameters of the extended finite element model are determined from the results of the desiccation experiments. The finite element scheme used to describe the desiccation shrinkage of soils which obtained from the hydro-mechanical formulation of the continuous medium is proposed. Then, a 3D hydro-mechanical model for the desiccation experiments is established with ABAQUS via the subroutine of UMAT and the XFEM tools in ABAQUS. The proposed numerical approach is validated by reproducing the desiccation experiments. It was shown that the numerical simulations fit well the experimental measurements. The numerical results, on the other hand, provide some useful information about both desiccation shrinkage and cracking of soils. The proposed approach simple and highly efficient and constitutes a promising approach in studying the crack initiation and propagation in soils induced by the desiccation shrinkage.