Abstract. Most atmospheric ¹⁴CO is produced by cosmic rays in the lowermost stratosphere and upper troposphere. The main removal process for ¹⁴CO is oxidation by OH radicals. Assuming that the spatial distribution of OH is well known, ¹⁴CO can be useful as a test-tracer for the transport properties of a three-dimensional chemical model. Conversely, if the transport schemes of the model are sufficiently realistic, in particular with respect to stratosphere-troposphere exchange, the OH distribution can be evaluated. In either case, it has to be assumed that the source of ¹⁴CO is known in sufficient detail. Two presently available distributions of cosmogenic ¹⁴C production are implemented into the Model of Atmospheric Transport and Chemistry (MATCH). The tropospheric ¹⁴CO concentrations that are obtained are relatively insensitive to the source differences. The calculations for one source distribution are performed for solar minimum and solar maximum conditions. The spatial distribution of ¹⁴CO is almost unaffected by the solar activity, and the absolute concentration levels can be scaled to the actual solar cycle conditions.