The profile of the crystallographic texture through the thickness of a hot-rolled austenitic stainless steel containing 18% Cr and 8.5% Ni was examined. Although the hot-rolled strip generally revealed a weak orientation distribution, a considerable texture gradient occurred between the central layers and the surface layers. In the centre of the sheet a cold-rolling type of texture, that is, a beta-fibre accompanied by a cubic orientation, was detected. It was assumed that this texture was formed during the last hot-rolling passes. Close to the surface, however, a shear texture consisting of a gamma-fibre, a {001}[110] and a {112}[110] component was revealed. The absence of a maximum of the shear texture at s = 0.7-0.8 will be discussed in terms of the recrystallization.