Lugs and pins, rivets, bolts are the most essential joints used in structural components apart from the welds. These elements experience dynamic loading during their life, leading to failure by fatigue. Many studies have been performed to estimate stress intensity factors (SIFs) and fatigue life for these joints. Although the effect of geometric configuration, loading methodology and interference levels on SIFs have been studied independently, very few have studies the combined effect; this may be either due to non-availability of closed form solutions or difficulty in experimentation. The current study uses Finite Element Analysis to evaluate the SIF for cracks emanating from a circular hole in a finite width rectangular plate under different loading conditions such as open hole load, bearing load, pin load (with and without interference) and the effect of introducing a bush. This study brings out the crack lengths beyond which the type of loading is not significant on the stress intensity factor, as well as interference levels beyond which there is no beneficial impact on the SIF and hence the life of component. © 2020 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). All rights reserved.