Tensile residual stresses are very often generated on the surface when machining nickel alloys. In order to determine their influence on the final mechanical behaviour of the component residual stress stability should be considered. In the present work the evolution of residual stresses induced by machining in Inconel 718 under static loading at room temperature has been studied. An Inconel 718 disc has been face turned and specimens for tensile tests have been extracted from the disc. Then surface residual stresses have been measured by X-ray diffraction for initial state and different loading levels. Finally, a finite element model has been fitted to experimental results and the study has been extended for more loading conditions. For the studied case, it has been observed that tensile residual stresses remain stable when applying elastic loads but they increase at higher loads close to the yield stress of the material.