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To promote the natural regeneration of secondary forests under gap disturbance is one of important approaches for realizing their restoration and sustainable management. However, soil seed bank, one of regeneration strategies, is poorly understood in gaps of secondary forests. Objectives of the study were to evaluate the effects of sizes of experimentally created gaps on seed distribution in soil, and of seed banks on vegetation recovery at early formation stage of gaps in temperate secondary forests, Northeast China. It was found that with increasing gap size, species richness in the seed bank significantly increased ( r = 0.691, P < 0.05, n = 10), but correspondence in species-composition of seed reservoir between gaps and canopies adjacent to gaps decreased ( r = −0.83, P < 0.01, n = 10). Gap size and soil depth and their two-way interactions had significant differences on the distribution of seed bank density ( F = 4.101, P < 0.05; F = 34.483, P < 0.01; F = 5.232, P < 0.01, respectively). The Sokal and Sneath similarity indices in species-composition between extant and potential (seed bank) vegetation were generally low, ranging from 0.06 (interior of large gaps) to 0.24 (canopies adjacent to large gaps). From the view of seed bank to restore temperate secondary forests, establishment of medium-sized artificial gaps (i.e., gap size with 500–150 m2) could be more feasible for seed invasion. To conclude, the regeneration potential out of soil seed banks is limited, and the restoration of gaps at early formation stage may be mostly dependent on other reproductive strategies (e.g., vegetative propagation of species). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]