In a process for the production of cold rolled ferritic stainless steel sheets or strips, a hot rolled strips has been annealed by a long time batchwise annealing and cold rolling and recrystallization annealing have been repeated usually twice. In the present invention, a hot rolled steel strip of an Al-containing ferritic stainless steel is heated by continuous annealing to a temperature of from 850.degree. to 1100.degree. C., AlN (aluminum nitride) is precipitated in the dispersed state and then cooling the strip to a temperature of 700.degree. to 900.degree. C., performing subsequent cooling to a level not higher than 200.degree. C. at such a cooling rate that a chromium depletion layer, which causes a gold dust defect, is not formed around the chromium carbonitride. Single cold rolling and recrystallization annealing are carried out in combination until the thickness is reduced to the gauge thickness.