Abstract-The effect of the isothermal holding temperature and cooling rate upon in air heat treatment on the magnetic properties and magnetization distribution in ribbons of amorphous soft magnetic iron based alloys with positive saturation magnetostriction has been investigated. The results of the investigation showed that the dependence of the maximum magnetic permeability on the isothermal holding temperature corre lates with the corresponding changes in the magnetization distribution in the ribbon and is determined by dif fusion processes that occur upon in air heat treatment at a specific isothermal holding temperature. An increase in the cooling rate leads to an ambiguous effect on the level of magnetic properties. The increase favors an improvement in magnetic properties when, after in air heat treatment, either a predominantly amorphous state of the surface or a state with the formed amorphous-crystalline surface layer with a nearly optimal thickness is obtained.