Pile foundations are often subjected to combined vertical and lateral loads. The current design practices assume that the effect of these two loads is independent of each other. Hence, the pile design is carried out separately for vertical and lateral loads. The laboratory and field test data on the lateral response of piles under the combined action of vertical and lateral loads is rather limited. This paper presents some results from 3D finite element based numerical analyses that show the significant influence of combined loading on the lateral response of piles. The finite element analyses were performed in both homogeneous clay and homogeneous sandy soils. The numerical results have shown that the influence of combined loading on the lateral response of piles is to significantly increase the lateral capacity in sand and marginally decrease the capacity in clayey soils. In general, it was found that the effect of combined vertical and lateral loads in sand is significant even for long piles, which are as long as 30 times the pile width, while in the case of clayey soils, the effect is not significant for piles beyond a length of 15 times the width of the pile. The maximum design bending moments in the laterally loaded piles under combined loading were found to increase with increase in vertical load levels in both the soils.