Abstract Tropospheric delay is one of the main errors in space geodetic techniques, and it must be correctly mitigated. In this paper, the radiosonde data are used to analyze the applicability of the grid tropospheric models GPT2w, IGGtrop, and GTPs in China. The results show that the GPT2w model and the IGGtrop model have accuracy of about 4.0-4.2 cm near the ground. The models’ performance in the western region is better than that in the eastern region, and the worst accuracy is found in the southeast. The accuracy in summer is obviously lower than that in winter. The GPT2w model version with lower spatial resolution may produce abnormal deviations in the middle and western regions. The GPT2w model clearly has systematic deviations, positive in the middle and western parts and negative in the southeast part. The accuracy of IGGtrop model is much higher than GPT2w model at heights above 3 km and remains stable with the increasing height. In addition, IGGtrop model is recommended to correct ZTD errors in aircraft positioning navigation. The temporal resolution of GTPs model is higher than empirical models, which results in higher accuracy, especially for the southeast region with variable humidity. However, it is unable to apply GTPs model in some areas due to insufficient GNSS data, which are used to update GTPs model. By analyzing the accuracy of different tropospheric models in China, this study provides a reference for users in China region.