A Gram-stain-positive, aerobic actinobacterial strain (designated SYP-A7299T), which displayed a rod-coccus growth lifecycle, was isolated from the rhizosphere of Ginkgo biloba L. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain SYP-A7299T belongs to the genus Arthrobacter and is most closely related to Arthrobacter halodurans JSM 078085T (97.4 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity). The DNA-DNA relatedness value between strain SYP-A7299T and A. halodurans JSM 078085T was 37 % ±2.9. The cell-wall peptidoglycan was A4α, and glucose and galactose were whole-cell sugars. The polar lipids consisted of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol, two glycolipids and an unknown polar lipid. The major menaquinone were MK-8(H2) (72 %) and MK-9(H2) (28 %), and the predominant cellular fatty acids were anteiso-C15 : 0, iso-C15 : 0 and anteiso-C17 : 0. The DNA G+C content was 68.9 mol%. Based on the morphological, physiological, biochemical and chemotaxonomic characters presented in this study, strain SYP-A7299T represents a novel species of the genus Arthrobacter, for which the name Arthrobacter ginkgonis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is SYP-A7299T (=DSM 100491T=KCTC 39 592T).