The subsurface stress field caused by both normal loads and tangential loads has been evaluated using the rectangular patch solution. The effect of tangential loading on the subsurface stress field has been investigated in detail for both the cylinder-on-cylinder contact and a spur gear teeth contact. For the cylinder-on-cylinder contact, the subsurface stress fields are moved more to the direction of tangential loads and the positions where the maximum stress occur are getting closer to the surface with the increasing tangential loads. The subsurface stress fields of the gear teeth contact are expanded more widely to the direction of tangential loads with the increasing tangential loads. The friction coefficient of a gear teeth contact is low because they are operated in a lubricated condition, and therefore surface tractions in the EHL condition hardly affect on the subsurface stress field.