The rice Wsi18 promoter confers drought-induciblegene expression. This property makes it a useful candidate to drive relevantgenes for developing drought resistant traits for different monocot crops. In this study, we showed that the Bradi2G47700 gene, the closest homologue to rice Wsi18, was upregulated in Brachypodium distachyon plants exposed to ABA and mannitol. Wsi18: uidA transgenic B.distachyon plants were produced and then subjected to ABA or mannitol treatment. Theexpression of uidA in threetransgenic lines (line 10, 18 and 37) was significantly upregulated in plantsexposed to ABA (fold increases of 5.61 ± 0.98,2.88 ± 0.75 and 9.13 ± 1.96, respectively) compared to the same transgenic plant lines withouttreatment. The expression of uidA intwo transgenic lines (lines 18 and 37) also showed upregulationwhen treated with mannitol (fold increases of 4.43 ± 1.07 and 8.47 ± 2.90,respectively) compared to the same transgenic plant lines without mannitoltreatment. Moreover, GUS histochemical assay showed increased Wsi18 promoter activity in the leaves and stems of transgenic lines upon treatment with ABA or mannitol. This is the first report of thedrought inducible rice Wsi18 promoterbeing active in B. distachyon which is a model plant for molecular biologyresearch of various monocot plants. Taken together, the results indicate thatthe Wsi18 promoter and its homologue may be explored as a useful tool for drought stress-inducible gene expression in different monocot crops.