In the course of further reducing the weight of structural parts, constantly growing importance is being attributed to the analysis of fatigue strength. Owing to the possibilities of numerical stress analysis, the so-called local stress concept has become popular in addition to the nominal approach. The article illustrates the difficulties occurring with fatigue life predictions according to the local stress concept for hot-rolled deep-draw steel structural parts. The fatigue life of the structural parts has been predicted through elasto-plastic finite element calculations using uniaxial fatigue tests of smooth specimens. An important prerequisite for the local stress approach is the transferability of the uniaxial fatigue strength to the structural parts. Therefore, a highly ductile, hot-rolled deep-draw steel has been used to show in what respect transferability of fatigue strength is given from uniaxial tests to structural components. Thereby, the notch root strain has been proved to be insufficient for the transferability.