Abstract. This work presents the first palaeostress results obtained from fault-slip data along the eastern margins of the Dead Sea Rift (also named Dead Sea Transform) in South-western Jordan. Stress inversion of the fault-slip data was performed using an improved Right-Dieder method, followed by rotational optimisation. Fault-slip data (totalling 2773) include fault planes, striations and sense of movements, obtained from outcrops ranging in age from Neoproterozoic crystalline basement to Holocene sediments. The data were inverted to determine 88 different palaeostress tensors. Eight palaeostress tensor groups (stages) have been identified, ranging from the Late Neoproterozoic to the Holocene period, and have been correlated with the tectonic evolution of the Dead Sea Rift.The new palaeostress data evidence a general clockwise rotation with time of the S Hmax axis from an E-W trend in the Cretaceous to a N-S trend in the Pleistocene. Two stages can be distinguished in this rotation. The older one marks the change of the S Hmax axis from E-W to NW-SE (about 50 • rotation), and took place in the Miocene. The second one illustrates the changes of the S Hmax axis from NW-SE to NNW-SSE to N-S (38 • rotation), taking place during the Pleistocene (the last 6 Ma). The data also show the appearance of E-W extension in the Late Pleistocene, superimposed on the Dead Sea Stress Field. We therefore suggest that the Dead Sea Rift system formed in a combination of strike-slip and dip-slip movements.