In this paper, the springback of the aluminium alloy AA5754 under hot stamping conditions was characterised under stretch and pure bending conditions. It was found that elevated temperature stamping was beneficial for springback reduction, particularly when using hot dies. Using cold dies, the flange springback angle decreased by 9.7 % when the blank temperature was increased from 20 to 450 °C, compared to the 44.1 % springback reduction when hot dies were used. Various other forming conditions were also tested, the results of which were used to verify finite element (FE) simulations of the processes in order to consolidate the knowledge of springback. By analysing the tangential stress distributions along the formed part in the FE models, it was found that the springback angle is a linear function of the average through-thickness stress gradient, regardless of the forming conditions used.