Species diversity in the Caatinga Dry Forest is increasingly threatened by anthropogenic disturbances that degrade soil quality, triggering cascading effects on essential ecosystem services. Visual Soil Assessment (VSA) offers a cost-effective and rapid diagnostic tool to assess soil quality under different disturbance levels. This study analyzed VSA as an early indicator of soil quality in the Caatinga Dry Tropical Forest and evaluated its ability to distinguish forest conditions compared to laboratory analyses (physical, chemical, and organic attributes). The research was conducted in Apodi, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, across four forest areas (NF1, NF2, NF3, and NF4) with varying preservation levels but similar limestone parent material. Morphological, visual, and laboratory soil analyses were performed. VSA proved to be practical and sensitive in detecting changes in native forest Cambisols under semiarid conditions. Key VSA indicators included earthworm count, absence of erosion, structure, porosity, compacted layer, and vegetation cover, effectively differentiating forest disturbance levels. The preservation classification ranked NF1 (lowest preservation) as moderate, NF2 (intermediate preservation) as good, and NF3 and NF4 (highest preservation) as very good. Multivariate analysis revealed that attributes related to total soil organic matter and its fractions in the surface layer (0-0.05 m) were the most sensitive to forest preservation levels. These attributes, along with nutrient availability (notably base cations) and soil pH influenced by limestone parent material, were higher in NF3 and NF4. Laboratory-based soil quality indices aligned with VSA results, confirming its reliability as an early diagnostic tool. VSA provides a valuable, cost-effective approach for monitoring and managing soil quality in the Caatinga Dry Forest, offering insights comparable to more resource-intensive laboratory analyses.