There are different stress approaches available for the fatigue assessment of welded components. In addition to the nominal stress approach also local approaches such as the structural stress and notch stress approach are in use. These allow a more detailed strength analysis of welded joints and are already part of various recommendations and guidelines. But an industrial application requires comparative information about the transferability of results between the different approaches. The DVS therefore initiated a research project in cooperation with other member associations (CMT, FOSTA, FAT and FKM) of the AIF. Object of this research is to establish the transferability and comparability between the different approaches and to finally show the advantages of an application of local approaches.