Arterial tissue is commonly assumed to be incompressible. While this assumption is convenient for both experimentalists and theorists, the compressibility of arterial tissue has not been rigorously investigated. In the current study we present an experimental-computational methodology to determine the compressibility of aortic tissue and we demonstrate that specimens excised from an ovine descending aorta are significantly compressible. Specimens are stretched in the radial direction in order to fully characterise the mechanical behaviour of the tissue ground matrix. Additionally biaxial testing is performed to fully characterise the anisotropic contribution of reinforcing fibres. Due to the complexity of the experimental tests, which entail non-uniform finite deformation of a non-linear anisotropic material, it is necessary to implement an inverse finite element analysis scheme to characterise the mechanical behaviour of the arterial tissue. Results reveal that ovine aortic tissue is highly compressible; an effective Poisson’s ratio of 0.44 is determined for the ground matrix component of the tissue. It is also demonstrated that correct characterisation of material compressibility has important implications for the calibration of anisotropic fibre properties using biaxial tests. Finally it is demonstrated that correct treatment of material compressibility has significant implications for the accurate prediction of the stress state in an artery under in vivo type loading.