The low volume fraction of carbide phase in carbon steel determines that it is difficult to estimate the stress state in it by diffraction method. In the present study, different from the studies before, we improve the technique of surface treatment on specimen and have successfully finished the stress estimations of carbide phase in carbon steels by X-ray diffraction method under normal conditions. Moreover, we investigate the affection of spherical cementite particle size on the residual stress distribution in both phases during the plastic deformed steels. We observed that the steels with small-sized cementite particles showed higher stress states than the steels with relatively large-sized cementite particles.