The thickness-dependent renormalization of strain effects on self-organized InAs quantum dots has been systematically investigated. The photoluminescence-emission energy shift for the smaller quantum dots reveals both the hydrostatic and shear strain effects. However, the characteristics of the larger quantum dots are attributed predominantly to the hydrostatic effect. Furthermore, due to the elastic stiffness constant difference, the GaAs matrix-dependent characteristics were prevailed in the smaller quantum dots, while InAs-like proper-ties were observed in the larger ones. All results indicate that the strain effect plays a major role in the emission energy of InAs quantum-dot heterosystems.