To provide a thin soft stretch elastic knitted fabric which has excellent stretchability and stretch recovery, especially has excellent soft stretchability and excellent recovery even in the case of a thin elastic knitted fabric knitted from natural fiber yarns and elastic fiber yarns and in the case of a dyed elastic knitted fabric, and is especially suitable for uses such inner wears and sportswear.

This soft stretch elastic knitted fabric which is knitted from elastic yarns and non-elastic yarns and whose knit stitches are formed from the elastic yarns is characterized in that the integral value S1 of 0 to 80% of a hysteresis curve is 7,500% in the longitudinal direction/latitudinal direction, when stretched, and a hysteresis loss is 25% in the longitudinal direction/latitudinal direction.