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• The structural behaviour of cold-formed steel T -stub connections with HRC and screws was studied experimentally and numerically. • The results of a total of 15 new experimental tests were reported. • Finite element analysis was conducted and validated against the test results. • The prediction accuracy of current design standards was evaluated. Cold-formed steel (CFS) T -Stub connections are widely used in single-story buildings, and their use is increasing in multi-story and long-span buildings. Recently, an innovative CFS T -Stub connection was developed using self-drilling screws and the Howick Rivet Connector (HRC), and such a newly-developed connection demonstrated excellent structural performance in the building industry. In this paper, a comprehensive experimental and numerical investigation was conducted to investigate the failure mechanism and structural behaviour of CFS T -Stub connections with a combination of HRC and screws under tension force, considering the effects of screw numbers. Firstly, a total of 15 new experimental tests were conducted on the CFS T -Stub connections with various numbers of screws. From the experiments, it was observed that the HRC was subjected to shear failures, while screws failed primarily due to tilting and bearing failures in all investigated specimens. Then, a non-linear elasto-plastic finite element (FE) model was developed and validated against the experimental results in terms of connection strength and failure modes. Finally, the design strengths obtained from the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI 2016) & Australia/New Zealand standards (AS/NZS 2018) and Ahmadi et al. (2016) were compared with the test and FEA results, showing that the ultimate design strength of CFS T -Stub connections was overestimated by 16% and 14%, respectively. However, for T -Stub connections with HRC alone and with HRC and one screw, these design guidelines were unconservative by 5%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]