The presence of water in the bituminous layers of a pavement structure often produce serious distress, reducing its performance and increasing the maintenance costs. Experience has shown that many factors such as bitumen characteristics, aggregate properties, mixture design, construction procedures, environmental conditions and traffic loading contribute to the severity of the condition. The influence of water on the service performance of bituminous pavements has been the subject of extensive research. This paper is based on a laboratory work and addresses the damaging effect of water in polymer fibre-reinforced bituminous mixtures. © 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, London.