Abstract: The effects of annealing after hot rolling and lubrication during cold rolling on the texture and grain colonies of a 21%Cr ferritic stainless steel were investigated. The results revealed that the grain colonies are obvious at the central layer of the final sheet with incomplete recrystallization during hot rolling and annealing, which having the high through-thickness texture gradient, thus causing the severe surface ridging and planar anisotropy in its forming process. And the through-thickness texture gradient became higher with lower intensity of γ-fiber texture in the final sheet if no lubrication was done during cold rolling in comparison to the sheet which was cold rolled with lubrication, thus causing the deterioration of the formability of the sheet. The way to make the formability better and the surface ridging resistance higher simultaneously is to ensure the complete recrystallization through proper annealing after hot rolling and the full lubrication during cold rolling.