  A local Cohen--Macaulay ring is called Ulrich-split if any short exact
sequence of Ulrich modules split. In this paper we initiate the study of Ulrich
split rings. We prove several necessary or sufficient criteria for this
property, linking it to syzygies of the residue field and cohomology
annihilator. We characterize Ulrich split rings of small dimensions. Over
complex numbers, $2$-dimensional Ulrich split rings, which are normal and have
minimal multiplicity, are precisely cyclic quotient singularities with at most
two indecomposable Ulrich modules up to isomorphism. We give several ways to
construct Ulrich split rings, and give a range of applications, from test ideal
of the family of maximal Cohen--Macaulay modules, to detecting
projective/injective modules via vanishing of $\operatorname{Ext}$.
