Nitrogen (N)-fertilizer application to agricultural soils results in substantial emissions of nitric oxide (NO), a key substance in tropospheric chemistry involved in climate forcing and air pollution. However, estimates of global cropland NO emissions remain uncertain due to a lack of information on direct NO emission factors (EF_d^s) of applied N for variours cropping systems at seasonal or annual scales. Here we quantified the crop-specific seasonal and annual-scale NO EF_d^s through synthesizing 1094 measurements from 125 field-based studies worldwide. The global mean crop-specific seasonal EF_d was 0.53%, with the highest for vegetables (0.75%). Among cereal crops, the EF_d of maize (0.45%) or wheat (0.47%) was about three-times higher than for rice (0.12%). At annual scale, the mean EF_d across all cropping systems was 0.58%, with tea plantations having the highest (1.54%). For other cropping systems, the annual-scale EF_d^s ranged from 0.02% to 1.07%. Besides crop type, also soil organic carbon, total N and pH as well as N fertilizer type were the main factors explaining the variations of NO EF_d^s. Based on obtained specific EF_d^s for each crop type, we estimated that NO emissions due to the use of synthetic fertilizers from global croplands are about 0.42–0.62 Tg N yr⁻¹. Our budgets are relatively lower if compared to estimates derived by the use of IPCC defaults for NO emissions (0.72–1.66 Tg N yr⁻¹) or reported elsewhere (0.67–1.04 Tg N yr⁻¹). In our estimates, cash crops (vegetable, tea and orchard), which cover only 9% of the world cropland area, contributed about 31% to total NO emissions from global fertilized croplands. Overall, our meta-analysis provides improved crop-specific NO EF_d^s reflecting current stage of knowledge. The work also highlights the relative importance of cash crop production as sources for atmospheric NO, i.e., agricultural systems on which mitigation efforts may focus.