The Caatinga is a semi-arid savannah in Brazil and constitutes the largest tropical dry seasonal forest area in the world. Adopting sustainable forest management practices (SFM) is the main alternative for extracting wood legally, and at the same time favors conservation of the biome. From this perspective, we developed this study aiming to answer the following questions: how do microbial biomass and soil enzymatic activity respond to Caatinga forest management after seven years and how do these responses differ between forest management practices? We examined soil samples (depth 0-10 cm) from Caatinga subjected to three types of forest management (clearcutting - CC, selective cutting by diameter - SCD, and selective cutting by species - SCS) and from unmanaged Caatinga (UC), located in the state of Bahia, Brazil. The C content of microbial biomass (MB-C) and N of microbial biomass (MB-N), microbial activity, activity of the arylsulfatase (ARYL) and beta-glucosidase enzymes were estimated in the laboratory. CC resulted in a reduction in the MB-C (46.2%), MB-N (20.2%) and ARYL (36.7%) levels, while selective cutting promoted maintenance in relation to UC. CC also promoted a reduction in the MB-C: SOC and microbial C: N indices and an increase in the metabolic quotient. CC negatively impacts the MB-C and MB-N, its efficiency of converting organic carbon to microbial carbon, and the ARYL. However, the hypothesis is rejected when it is considered that the microbiological attributes of the soil in the SCD would be closer to the CC condition. Both SCD and SCS are favorable for maintaining microbial biomass and its activity in the soil due to their lesser interference in the structure and diversity of vegetation.