This article describes a methodology to characterize the failure limits by necking and fracture, and to determine the critical value of ductile damage in tube forming. The methodology makes use of digital image correlation, thickness measurements and force–displacement evolutions to obtain the strain loading paths and the strain values at the onsets of failure by necking and fracture. The onset of failure by necking is determined by a new technique that combines the strain and force–displacement evolutions whereas the fracture strains at the cracked regions of the tubes are obtained by a similar technique utilized by the authors in sheet metal forming. Transformation of the strain loading paths from principal strain space into the space of effective strain versus stress-triaxiality allows determining the critical experimental value of ductile damage at the onset of failure by necking. The methodology is applied to tube expansion with circular, elliptical and square cross-section punches and results confirm its importance and helpfulness for researchers and engineers involved in the development and optimization of industrial tube forming processes.