A stereoscopic PIV (SPIV) measurement system based on the translation configuration was developed and applied to the flow behind a forward-swept axial-fan. Measurement of three orthogonal velocity components is essential for flow analysis of three-dimensional flows such as flow around a fan or propeller. In this study, the translation configuration was adopted to calculate the out-of-plane velocity component from 2-D PIV data obtained from two CCD cameras. The error caused by the out-of-plane motion was estimated by direct comparison of the 2-D PIV and 3-D SPIV results that measured from the particle images captured simultaneously. The comparison shows that the error ratio is relatively high in the region of higher out-of-plane motion near the axial fan blade. The turbulence intensity measured by the 2-D PIV method is bigger by about 5.8% in maximum compared with that of the 3-D SPIV method. The phase-averaged velocity field results show that the wake behind an axial fan has a periodic flow structure with respect to the blade phase and the characteristic flow structure is shifted downstream in the next phase.