Emission inventories are a critical basis for air quality and climate modeling, as well as policy decisions. Non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs) are key precursor compounds in ozone and secondary organic aerosol formation. Accurately representing NMVOCs in emission inventories is crucial for understanding atmospheric chemistry, the impact of policy measures, and climate projections. Improving NMVOC representation in emission inventories is fraught with challenges, ranging from the lack of (long-term) NMVOC measurements, limited efforts in updating emission factors, to the diversity of NMVOC species reactivity. Here we take an initial step to evaluate the representation of urban NMVOC speciation in anemission inventory (EDGARv4.3.2 and EDGARv6.1) at the global level. To compare the urban measurements of NMVOCs to the emission inventory estimates, ratios of individual NMVOCs to acetylene are used. Owing to limitations in measurement data and grouping of NMVOCs in emission inventories, the comparison includes only a limited number of alkanes, alkenes, and aromatics. Results show little to no agreement between the ratiosin the observations and those in the global emission inventory for the species compared (r2 0.01–0.20). Thiscould be related to incorrect speciation profiles and/or spatial allocation of NMVOCs to urban areas. Regionalemission inventories show better agreement among the ratios (r2 0.43–0.70). The inclusion of oxygenatedspecies in NMVOC measurements, as well as greater global coverage of measurements could improverepresentation of NMVOC species in emission inventories, and a mosaic of regional inventories may be a betterapproach.