Substantial interspecific variation in both drought responses and soil functioning among woody species poses significant challenges for predicting drought impacts on soil functioning in species-rich tropical and subtropical forests. However, critical knowledge gaps remain regarding how soil functions respond to drought across different plant species. We conducted a seedling greenhouse experiment to assess how drought impacts on eight rhizosphere soil functions related to carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycling vary across 10 woody species from two habitats with contrasting soil water contents. We tested three hypotheses: (1) Compared to species specialized to the moist habitat, species specialized to the arid habitat exhibit greater soil functional resistance to drought; (2) Species with stronger drought-tolerant traits confer higher drought resistance to soil functions; and (3) Root and chemical traits are better predictors of soil functional responses to drought compared to leaf or other morphological traits. We found that soil functions of species adapted to the arid habitat or those possessing stronger drought-tolerant traits (e.g., lower leaf water potential at turgor loss point) did not show significantly greater resistance compared to their counterparts. Root traits, particularly chemical traits, are superior to leaf morphological traits in predicting interspecific variation in resistance and recovery of soil functions to drought. Specifically, species with lower root N:P ratios and root non-structural carbon concentrations consistently recovered faster in all four measured soil enzyme activities. These two traits accounted for over 50% of the variation in soil enzyme activity recovery rates among species on average. These findings significantly improve our understanding and prediction of drought impacts on soil functioning in species-rich forests.