Phosphorus is an important limiting nutrient in many ecosystems. Consequently, there is increasing interest on phosphate uptake and algal growth due to the increasing frequency and magnitude of algal blooms induced by eutrophication. The co-existence of surface adsorbed and intracellular phosphorus pools indicate that phosphate uptake by phytoplankton is, to some extent, a two-stage kinetic process. However, almost all previous uptake models considered the internal uptake stage only and ignored the possible impact of surface adsorption. In this article, a two-stage kinetic uptake model considering both surface adsorption and P-stress on phosphate uptake by algae was constructed and compared to conventional one-stage models, based on experimental data on short-term uptake kinetics of a green algae S. quadricauda. Results indicated that with suitable parameters, the two-stage uptake model not only fit the experimental data better, but also gave more reasonable and realistic explanations to the phosphate uptake process. The results are meaningful as surface-adsorption of phosphate may affect the uptake process of phosphate and assist in understanding realistic phosphate uptake kinetics in phytoplankton.