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The growth of coated sheet steels in automotive applications continues to require new application technology in joining, finishing, painting and forming. The formability of zinc-coated steels depends on both the character of the substrate and nature of the coating. By eliminating the substrate as a variable in this study, the effect of various coatings (one-side electrogalvanized, hot-dip zinc and iron-zinc alloy) on formability was determined using simulative laboratory tests. Under conditions of plane strain and stretch, all coated and uncoated steels performed comparably and can be considered interchangeable with each other. However, for drawing conditions, the drawability parameter, rm, of the hot-dip iron-zinc alloy coated steels was inferior to that of both free zinc coatings and uncoated steels.