In this paper, the shear strength of corrugated web girders made of EN 1.4162/LDX 2101 stainless steel is investigated. Four full-scale trapezoidal corrugated web girders were tested under shear. Before conducting the tests, DIC was used to measure the real geometric imperfections in the web panels. Complementary finite element analysis studies were conducted to assess the sensitivity of the shear strength to initial imperfections. The experimental results indicated that all the tested girders with a local slenderness ratio of λ = 0.7 attained the shear yield strength, which was then followed by strain hardening in the material at a level that was 8–18% higher than the yield strength. This implies that the Eurocode's limit of λ = 0.25 to attain the plastic shear strength in corrugated webs can be quite conservative for stainless steel. According to the findings of the imperfection sensitivity studies, an initial geometric imperfection based on the first eigen buckling mode and with a maximum amplitude of amax/200, where amax is the maximum corrugation fold length, yielded ultimate strength within 3% of the test results. When the amplitude was increased to hw/200, where hw is the web height, the ultimate strength was estimated to be 25% lower on average than in the experiments. In three of the studied girders, initial imperfections with other forms than the first buckling mode were found to be more critical. Further, it was found that regardless of mode number, mode shapes that are more extended over the web panel result in a higher degradation of the ultimate shear strength. © 2023 The Authors