In this work we question the validity of surface stress relief as a driving force for surface reconstruction in the particular case of the (110) face of fcc transition metals. To this aim, we calculate within tight-binding second moment potential, both surface energy and surface stress before and after the (1 x 2) missing row reconstruction. Doing that, one indeed checks that reconstruction is energetically favourable for An and Pt and not for Ni and Cu as experimentally seen, but we also find that it enhances surface stress along the dense direction for all the elements and along the less dense direction for those which reconstruct. Therefore, surface stress relief is definitely not the driving force for this reconstruction. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.