This work is concerned with an experimental and theoretical study on compression properties of magnetorheological fluids under the nonuniform field. Experimental tests of unidirectional monotonic compression were firstly carried out under constant area operation using a commercial plate-plate magneto-rheometer where the magnetic field radial distribution was nonuniform. Normal forces increased with decreasing of the gap distance, and two regions were found through the normal force versus gap distance curves: elastic deformation and plastic flow. High normal forces could be obtained in the case of high magnetic field, high compression velocity, low initial gap distance, high volume fraction, and high medium viscosity. In the plastic flow region, the normal force with the gap distance could be fitted with a power law relation , and the index n was around well in the range (-3, -2). Taking nonuniform magnetic field into account, the theoretical modeling in the plastic flow was then developed to calculate the normal force under compression based on the continuum media theory. Compared to the uniform field, there existed a magnetic field gradient-induced normal force under nonuniform field. Considering the sealing and squeeze strengthening effect, the gap distance-dependent shear yield stress was proposed, and a good correspondence between the theoretical and experimental results was obtained.