The data are the source data for Figures 2, 3, and 4 in the paper "Megathrust shear force controls mountain height at convergent plate margins" by Dielforder, Hetzel, and Oncken (2020). Details on the calculation of the data are given in the methods section of this paper. The archive "2020-002_Dielforder-et-al_shear_stress_envelopes.zip" includes ten csv-files entitled "n_shear_stress_envelope.csv", where n is a number from 1 to 10 and refers to the margin transects studied in the paper (for labeling see below). The files provide the source data for the ten shear stress envelopes shown in Figure 2. In each file, the values in the first, second, and third column are depth (m), shear stress (MPa), and the one standard deviation of the shear stress (MPa), respectively. The archive "2020-002_Dielforder-et-al_shear_force_solutions.zip" contains one csv-file including 100,000 model solutions for the megathrust shear force (TN m-1). Columns 1 to 10 contain the solutions for the respective margin transects. The archive "2020-002_Dielforder-et-al_force_balance_solutions.zip" includes ten csv-files entitled "n_force_balance_solutions.csv" following the same labeling scheme as above. The values in the first, second, and third column are the 100,000 model solutions for the tectonically supported elevation TSE (m), the shear-force component required to support the submarine margin topography F_SMT (TN m-1), and the shear-force component available to support subaerial mountain height [delta]F_s (TN m-1), respectively. For the Himalayas (10_force_balance_solutions.csv), there are only values in the first column, because the Himalayas have no submarine margin topography. The 100,000 model solutions were used to calculate the mean values and one standard deviation shown in Figures 3 and 4 and listed in Table 1 and Extended Data Table 3. Labeling: 1, Northern Cascadia; 2, 3, and 4, Andes at 23º S, 34º S, and 36º S, respectively; 5, Northern Sumatra; 6, Kamchatka; 7, Japan Trench; 8, Nankai Trough; 9, Northern Hikurangi; 10, Himalayas. The references listed below provide the input parameters used to calculate the shear stress envelopes, F_s, TSE, F_SMT and [delta]Fs.