Abstract Aim We present the first global database of movement patterns of terrestrial invertebrates, focusing on active dispersal and foraging movements. We depict interspecific variations in movement distances among invertebrates and assess potential drivers of these variations. We finally contrast our results with those of previous vertebrate studies. Location Worldwide. Methods We conducted a meta‐analysis using 176 studies. They provided 411 movement estimates: 175 foraging movement estimates for 101 species, 51 families and 19 orders, and 236 dispersal estimates for 131 species, 53 families and 16 orders. These estimates were complemented by several organism functional traits: body mass, diet, locomotion mode and by environmental variables of the study sites: temperature and NDVI. We computed allometric relationships between movement distances and body mass both globally and separately for each taxonomic order with sufficient data. We tested the relative influence of the co‐variables on movement distances through model selection. Results We reveal a general positive allometric relationship between movement distance and body mass that holds across most taxonomic orders. We evidence a strong phylogenetic signal in movement distances that translates in variable allometries of movement distances with body mass across taxonomic orders. We further find that interspecific variations of movement distances are primarily correlated with functional differences rather than environmental conditions. Locomotion mode is the most important explanatory variable of both dispersal and foraging distances, with larger distances among flying individuals followed by walking and crawling ones for a given body mass. Surprisingly, trophic guild has a low predictive power of invertebrate movement distances as opposed to vertebrates, with unclear differences between invertebrate carnivores, herbivores and decomposers. Main Conclusions Our study provides general allometric equations for terrestrial movement distances of invertebrates. It further reveals important functional drivers of their interspecific variation in space use with a dominant role of their evolutionary history.