Residual stress distribution in an AISI 316L stainless steel powder compact under hot isostatic pressing (HIP) was investigated by using finite element method (FEM). The thermal elasto-viscoplastic constitutive equations were established based on the Perzyna viscoplastic rheological theory. An ellipsoidal yield criterion was used for the porous compact during HIP process. The coupled thermo-mechanical calculation was solved by employing the incremental Newton-Raphson iterative solution strategy on a finite element analysis program (MSC.Marc). The results of the simulation indicate that the final compact is dominated by residual tension stress, and shear failure play an important role in cracks of the compact; it is also found that tension stress of the compact has a dramatic raise during the unloading stage of HIP progress. The simulated results are compared with an experiment and good agreement is found in cracks.