The bucklingBuckling analysis of hydraulic cylinder is always investigated within elastic limit without considering the imperfectionsImperfection. The imperfections such as initial deviation and misalignments in the hydraulic cylinder are always present due to manufacturing and installation errorsError and wear in the sealing mechanism. The design of such a structure is very important to avoid catastrophic failure. In this paper, the nonlinear buckling analysis of a two-stage hydraulic cylinder is investigated by considering material and geometric nonlinearitiesNonlinearities using Static Riks technique (FEA). The material nonlinearity is considered as multilinear isotropic material hardening and geometry nonlinearitiesNonlinearities are considered from the first and second mode shape of the linear buckling analysis of the hydraulic cylinder. Three cases of imperfectionsImperfection are investigated, such as first at junction 1 and second at junction 2 and last at combinations of junctions 1 and 2. The study also focused on the short, medium, and long columns with different end conditions. It is observed from the nonlinear analysis that the load carrying capacityCapacity of the hydraulic cylinder reduces when material and geometry nonlinearitiesNonlinearities are present and the effect of imperfectionImperfection at junction 1 significantly reduces the bucklingBuckling load of the hydraulic cylinder in comparison to junction 2.