Sour cherry (Prunus cerasus L.) seeds normally are deeply dormant. Depending on the species, dormant seeds need cold or warm stratification or a combination of warm and cold treatment for germination and uniform seedling growth. Seeds were taken from ‘Kütahya’, ‘Rubin’, and ‘Stockton Morello’ sour cherries and, after a warm stratification at 15°C, five treatments of cold (3°C) or warm (20-25°C)-cold combination were assessed for their potential to overcome dormancy and enhance the percentage of germination. After stratification treatments, all seed lots were incubated in natural climate conditions. The seed germination was significantly affected by cultivar and stratification application (p ≤ 0.01) and cold stratification significantly increased germination of all cultivars. There was a linear relationship between cold stratification duration and germination percentage and the regression coefficients (r = 0.9 for ‘Kütahya’ and ‘Rubin’, r = 0.8 for ‘Stockton Morello’) were statistically significant (p ≤ 0.01). Seeds subjected to 150 days at 3°C (T3) had the highest germination percentage for all sour cherry cultivars. In seeds of ‘Kütahya’, ‘Rubin’, and ‘Stockton Morello’, increasing the duration of cold stratification from 0 to 150 days resulted in germination increases up to 29%, 80% and 64%, respectively.