Bolt-hole clearance effects on bearing strength of bolted joints in cross-ply, [0/90] 2s , glass fiber reinforced epoxy (GFRE) composites, were investigated experimentally and numerically. A series of ASTM tests (tensile, compressive and shear) were conducted on a unidirectional laminates to find the lamina properties, which were used as input to a 3D developed progressive damage model (PDM). The model was built with the aid of ABAQUS software, nonlinear Hashin failure criteria and Riccio property degradation rules. The PDM was used to predict the failure load and mode of composite bolted joint with bolt-hole clearance of 0, 50, 100, 200, 300 µm. Bearing strength was determined according to three different criteria: load at 4% hole deformation, first peak load and ultimate load. The numerical results of the ultimate strength agree well with the experimental ones with a maximum deviation of 7.1 %. Increasing the bolt-hole clearance from 0 to 300 µm reduces the contact area by 17.8% and increasing the contact pressure by 26.6 %. Accordingly, the 4% HDS, first peak bearing strength, the measured ultimate strength and the predicted ultimate strength were decreased respectively by 20.9%, 34.0%, 14.2% and 8.8%. On the other hand, the failure mode did not affected by increasing the bolt-hole clearance within the investigated values.