Anisotropic constitutive equations for sintering of metal powder compacts have been formulated from a linear viscous transversely-isotropic model in which an anisotropic sintering stress has been introduced to describe free sintering densification kinetics. The identification of material parameters defined in the model, has been achieved from thermomechanical experiments performed on 316L stainless steel warm-compacted powder in a dilatometer allowing controlled compressive loading.