The thermal shrinkage behaviour of poly(ethylene terephthalate) fibres and films with varying amounts of orientation and crystallinity and different degrees of crystal disorder is reported. It is shown that the shrinkage of undrawn and drawn samples with low orientation can be considered as the contraction of a rubber-like network which arises from disorientation of the oriented amorphous phase. However, in the highly drawn samples with significantly higher orientation, interaction between shrinkage and crystallization can occur, particularly in samples produced at low speeds. X-ray diffraction and thermal studies show that these samples have crystals with high defect density and also contain tiny nuclei; these factors can result in rapid crystallization at relatively high temperatures and thus impede shrinkage.