Abstract With the increased availability of faster computers, it is now practical to employ numerical modeling techniques to invert resistivity data for 3-D structure. Full and approximate 3-D inversion methods using the finite-element solution for the forward problem have been developed. Both methods use reciprocity for efficient evaluations of the partial derivatives of apparent resistivity with respect to model resistivities. In the approximate method, the partial derivatives are approximated by those for a homogeneous half-space, and thus the computation time and memory requirement are further reduced. The methods are applied to synthetic data sets from 3-D models to illustrate their effectiveness. They give a good approximation of the actual 3-D structure after several iterations in practical situations where the effects of model inadequacy and topography exist. Comparisons of numerical examples show that the full inversion method gives a better resolution, particularly for the near-surface features, than does the approximate method. Since the full derivatives are more sensitive to local features of resistivity variations than are the approximate derivatives, the resolution of the full method may be further improved when the finite-element solutions are performed more accurately and more efficiently.