Fatigue experiments were conducted up to N=108 cycles on a duplex stainless steel. The investigations revealed important information: (i) most of the slip markings on {111}-slip planes form during the early stage of fatigue (~104), although many grains stay active in developing more and/or longer slip bands (investigations with SEM/EBSD). It was found that the damage in these grains often has its origin at grain or phase boundaries, growing into the interior of the grains; (ii) in most of the recrystallisation twins slip markings are present in all parts of the grain leading to the assumption that just tilted grain boundaries are not very effective as microstructural barriers. In cases where the twin grain boundary is favorably oriented, it even can promote microcrack initiation; (iii) phase boundaries are most effective in restricting dislocation movement to the softer austenite, since no evidence of growing fatigue damage was found in ferritic grains. These findings lead to the conclusion that for the material studied an endurance limit exists despite occurring plastic deformation. This behaviour is a consequence of the barrier effect induced by phase boundaries against short crack propagation and holds true as long as no inclusions are present.