The objective of this paper is to investigate the torque-speed characteristics of single-phase axial flux squirrel cage induction motors using a two-dimensional (2-D) electromagnetic field analysis. In this study, the effect of saturation and anisotropy of electromagnetic cores is taken into account. Furthermore, the effect of harmonics is considered in the analysis. Then, 2-D and three-dimensional time-stepping finite-element (FE) analysis is employed to validate theoretical results. Finally, the motor prototype is constructed and tested. Good agreement between analytic, FE and experimental results shows the accuracy and success of proposed model.