Many studies have been made on application of results of fatigue tests on small smooth specimens to evaluation of the fatigue life in structural members based on the estimated strain behavior in stress-concentrated region. Most of the estimation formulae for strain behavior so far proposed have been derived from the analyses under monotonically increasing load. In order to evaluate the fatigue life reasonably, however, it is more desirable to know cyclic local strain range rather than monotonic strain behavior. In the present study, therefore, it was tried to establish a simple method to estimate the local strain range under cyclic loading. Namely, elastic-plastic FEM analyses under cyclic loading were conducted on notched plates, and an investigation was made into effects of applied stress condition, stress concentration factor and material properties on the local strain range. As a result, the formulae to estimate shakedown limit and cyclic local strain range were derived. A comparison was made between some results of fatigue tests on notched plates so far published and the fatigue life estimated using the formulae proposed in this study. Although the scatter band in the relation between estimated and measured fatigue lives is rather wide, it is concluded that the method proposed can be used to estimate well on the whole the fatigue lives in the wide range of 10²5 × 10⁶ cycles in notched steel plates of 4180 kgf/mm² strength levels.