Five well known failure criteria and one simple progressive model have been used in conjunction with laminate theory, which allows for nonlinear lamina shear behaviour, to predict the initial and final failure strengths of filament wound composite tubes. The predictions have been compared with experimental leakage and fracture stresses for ±75°, ±55° and ±45° filament wound GRP tubes subjected to a wide range of biaxial stress systems including biaxial compression. In some cases the fracture strengths were a factor of 10 higher than the initial failure predictions. The simple progressive failure theory predictions gave the best agreement with the experimental results.