Simulations of ozone loss rates using a three-dimensional chemical transport model and a box model during recent Antarctic and Arctic winters are compared with experimental loss rates. The study focused on the Antarctic winter 2003, during which the first Antarctic Match campaign was organized, and on Arctic winters 1999/2000, 2002/2003. The maximum ozone loss rates retrieved by the Match technique for the winters and levels studied reached 6 ppbv/sunlit hour and both types of simulations could generally reproduce the observations at 2-sigma error bar level. In some cases, for example, for the Arctic winter 2002/2003 at 475 K level, an excellent agreement within 1-sigma standard deviation level was obtained. An overestimation was also found with the box model simulation at some isentropic levels for the Antarctic winter and the Arctic winter 1999/2000, indicating an overestimation of chlorine activation in the model. Loss rates in the Antarctic show sips of saturation in September, which have to be considered in the comparison. Sensitivity tests were performed with the box model in order to assess the impact of kinetic parameters of the ClO-Cl<inf>2</inf>O<inf>2</inf> catalytic cycle and total bromine content on the ozone loss rate. These tests resulted in a maximum change in ozone loss rates of 1.2 ppbv /sunlit hour, generally in high solar zenith angle conditions. In some cases, a better agreement was achieved with fastest photolysis of Cl<inf>2</inf>O<inf>2</inf> and additional source of total inorganic bromine but at the expense of overestimation of smaller ozone loss rates derived later in the winter. Copyright 2007 by the American Geophysical Union.