Soil respiration (R_s), a critical component of the global carbon cycle, is highly sensitive to warming. Agricultural soils, including abandoned croplands, are large sources of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. However, the responses of R_s and its components to warming from abandoned croplands with no further management activities remain elusive at the national scale. Here, we report the warming responses of R_s, heterotrophic respiration (R_h), and autotrophic respiration (R_a) from China’s abandoned croplands spanning a large range in latitude (22.33–46.58°N) and elevation (2–3734 m) from three-year in situ warming experiments. We found that warming treatment (+1.6 °C) significantly stimulated R_s, R_h, and R_a by 30.4%, 37.2%, and 37.3%, respectively. The response of R_s to warming was higher in abandoned croplands (19.1% °C⁻¹) than in other terrestrial ecosystems (5.4%–9.2% °C⁻¹), attributing to greater increases in plant biomass and soil organic carbon induced by warming. R_s was more responsive to warming in low latitude or elevation regions with high plant biomass. Under the warming conditions, the apparent temperature sensitivity (Q₁₀) of R_s increased in low latitude and elevation regions due to a decrease in soil carbon availability but decreased in high latitude and elevation regions due to an increase in carbon availability induced by warming. Despite the positive warming response of R_s, the net ecosystem productivity in abandoned croplands slightly increased by 18.7% attributing to increased plant productivity under warming. These findings demonstrate that R_s in abandoned croplands was more sensitive to warming in warmer regions than in colder regions, underscoring the importance of latitude- or elevation-induced variations in soil carbon availability in determining the response of R_s to warming and projecting cropland carbon-climate feedback.