Headed studs are widely used in composite bridges to provide longitudinal shear force transfer in the interface between concrete deck and steel beam. There is still no theoretical model available to describe the local failure mechanism and the resistance under the monotonic loading of the stud. The standard design of shear studs assumes that the static resistance is independent of fatigue. A test series on 12.5mm studs published by Oehlers however indicates a linear reduction of the static resistance with the number of cycles. In order to shed more light on this question a test series on 22mm studs was performed, which is the common size in bridges. The residual static resistance of shear studs after cyclic loading was measured using push tests according to Eurocode 4-1-1. The test program consisted of two series of tests. Five static tests were performed for establishing a reference static resistance and five residual strength tests were used to measure residual static resistance after cyclic preloading. In order to give an insight into the local failure mechanism under the monotonic loading a realistic 3D FE analysis of a single stud embedded in the concrete is presented. Results obtained from the FE model are compared with experiments and rather good agreement is obtained.