The aim of this study is to investigate residual stresses occurred during cooling procedure of ZrO 2 insulation coating on Ag substrate for magnet technologies. ZrO 2 coatings were produced on Ag tape substrate by using a reel-to-reel sol–gel technique. SEM inspection showed that ZrO 2 coatings had mosaic structures. ANSYS finite element software was used to calculate the temperature and stress distribution of the ZrO 2/Ag structure. The effect of coating thickness on residual stresses was also examined. The results obtained showed that thermal stresses in ZrO 2 coating and Ag substrate were considerably affected by the cooling time and coating thickness. It is concluded the thermal stresses increase with increase of film thickness.