Laser beam welding of zinc-coated steel, especially lap joints, has a problem of zinc vapor produced during welding which has a low vaporization temperature of 906.deg. C. It is lower than the melting temperature of steel (1500.deg. C). The high pressure formed by vaporization of zinc during laser welding splatters the molten pool and creates porosities in weld. During laser lap welds of zinc-coated steel sheets with CW CO$_{2}$ laser the gap size has been analyzed and simulated using a FEM. The simulation has been carried out in the range of gap aetween 0 and 0.16 mm. The vaporized zinc gas has effected to prevent heat from conducting toward the bottom of sheets. In vaporized zinc gas has effected to prevent heat from conducting toward the bottom of sheets. In the case of too small gap size, zinc gas has not ejected and existed between two sheets. Therefore heat was difficult to conduct from the upper sheet to lower sheet and the upper sheet could over-melted. In the case of large gap size the zinc gas has been prefectly ejected but only a part of lower sheet has melted. The optimum range of gap size in the lap welds of zinc-coated steel sheets has been calculated to be between 0.08 and 0.12 mm. According to the comparison of experiment, the simulation is proved to be acceptable and applicable to laser lap welds.