The corrosion behavior of 17–4 precipitation hardened (PH) stainless steel in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution was investigated in the present research by both electrochemical experiments and constant strain rate tensile tests. Electrochemical experiments revealed that corrosion behavior of PH steel was mainly controlled by cathodic reactions. The double‐stage aging process exhibited poor corrosion resistance with a corrosion current density (icorr) of 1.18 × 10−5 A/cm2 in comparison to single‐stage aging and adding intermediate treatments. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images suggested that cracks in the samples were deeper and wider, whereas transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images expounded that the precipitation of carbides occurred at grain boundaries. The adding intermediate treatment process yielded the lowest SCC susceptibility (Iscc) with the lowest icorr of 4.98 × 10−6 A/cm2. Furthermore, it was found that anodic dissolution (AD) dominated the stress corrosion cracking (SCC) mechanism of 17–4 PH stainless steel; however, under the same process, applied strain rates also increased the values of Iscc. Therefore, among all factors, heat treatment processes manifested greater effects on Iscc as compared to applied strain rates and loading times.