Abstract Most previous work in anisotropic yield criteria has focused on describing the yield loci using a continuous function, which is ideal when applying to materials with limited anisotropy. But in practice, many widely used metals such as aluminum alloys and magnesium alloys show strong features in different crystallographic directions, which cause increasing undetermined coefficients and more complex functional forms. Furthermore, with development of new materials, existing yield criteria shall meet challenges in feasibility because a continuous function is expected to predict only a few kinds of yield surface shapes. To extend the anisotropic yield criteria family, an interpolation-type orthotropic yield function for plane stress is proposed in this paper, in which the physical meaning of coefficients is directly defined. The proposed interpolation-type orthotropic yield function reproduces with great accuracy the anisotropic behaviors under biaxial tension and uniaxial tension/compression, including but not limited to the varying yield stress and R-coefficients with loading direction and tension/compression asymmetry. Moreover, comparing the predictions of the yield loci by the interpolation-type orthotropic yield function with those by classical yield functions, it is shown that the proposed function gives the best agreement with experimental data of FCC, BCC and HCP sheet metal samples.