The purpose of the present paper was to investigate the effect of interlayer on the maximum contact stresses in the critical regions in a hard coating under static contact condition using finite element analysis. Four different elastic moduli and nine different thickness of interlayer were used. Modeling results showed that the interlayer did not reduce the maximum shear stress at the coating/substrate interface, whether it was thick or thin. When the thin interlayer was presented, whether it was soft or hard, the maximum tensile stress on surface and maximum von Mises stress within coating were decreased.