Abstract The dependence of the giant magnetoimpedance effect on both the applied tensile stress and skin depth is employed to estimate the average of the frozen-in stresses within a Co-based amorphous wire fabricated by the in-rotating water quenching technique. In order to estimate the average stress in different regions of the wire (cylindrical shells), selected frequencies of the driving current were applied, which give rise to different effective skin depths. Experimental results display a continuous increase of the frozen-in stresses from the centre to the surface of the wire, confirming that the fabrication process indeed introduces a radial magnetoelastic anisotropy distribution.