Because of complex chemical reactions of chromium in soil, the mechanism of electroremediation of Cr-contaminated soil remains unclear up to now.In this paper, effects of voltage drops during electrokinetic treatments on the movement of chromium in a yellow brown soil were studied by evaluating distribution of voltage drops in soil sections, electric energy consumption, change in soil basic properties and total chromium residual in the soil.The results show that electrokinetic currents and electroosmosis flows increased with increasing voltage, and the soil pHs in all soil sections dropped to about 3 after electrokinetics.Redox and precipitat ion reactions occurred in the soil column during the electrokinetic treatments, which led to decrease in ions concentrat ion in the soil solution and uneven distribution of voltage drop in the soil column.The applied electric field and low pH environment strengthened reduction reaction of hexavalent chromium to form hardly-movable trivalent chromium in the soil.Application of 20 V voltage achieved higher Cr removal rate and used up less electric energy.After 576 hours, the treatment removed 41.1% and 77.7%, of soil Cr and Cr (v) respectively, and used up 147 kWh t^-1 of electric energy.It suggests that to control anolyte pH and increase the anolyte electroconductivity is an effective method to increase Cr removal rate from the soil column and reduce electric energy consumption.