A Gram-stain-positive, non-motile, coccus-shaped bacterium, strain THG-a14T, was isolated from soil of Gyeyang mountain in Incheon, Republic of Korea. The isolate grew optimally at 28 °C, at pH 6.5-7.5 and with 0-3 % (w/v) NaCl. Based on 16S rRNA gene sequence comparisons, strain THG-a14T was closely related to Phycicoccus aerophilus 5516T-20T (97.7 %), P. ginsenosidimutans BXN5-13T (97.6 %), 'P. ochangensis' L1b-b9 (97.4 %) and P. bigeumensis MSL-03 (97.2 %). The DNA G+C content of strain THG-a14T was 71.6 mol%. In DNA-DNA hybridization, the DNA-DNA relatedness between strain THG-a14T and its closest phylogenetically neighbours was below 50.0 %. Strain THG-a14T was characterized chemotaxonomically as having meso-diaminopimelic acid in the cell-wall peptidoglycan. Strain THG-a14T contained glucose and ribose as whole-cell-wall sugars and menaquinone MK-8(H4) as the major isoprenoid quinone. Polar lipids in strain THG-a14T consisted of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol, phosphoaminoglycolipids, unidentified phospholipids and unidentified lipids. The major fatty acids were iso-C16:0, iso-C15:0 and C17:1ω8c. On the basis of our polyphasic taxonomy study, strain THG-a14T represents a novel species within the genus Phycicoccus, for which the name Phycicoccussoli sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is THG-a14T ( = KACC 17892T = JCM 19837T).