Theoretical and experimental studies were carried out on a new type of self-compensating bi-conic hydrostatic bearing. The structure and operating principle of self-compensating bi-conic hydrostatic bearing was introduced. Theoretical models of the lubrication film were built with perturbation method, and the influence of rotor motion on the restrictor gap was taken into account for the self-compensation restricting equation. The model was solved in finite element method (FEM) and was validated with experiments. Load carrying capacity, fluid flow rate, stiffness and damping coefficients were studied. The results have shown that the self-compensating hydrostatic bearing has higher radial load carrying capacity than fixed-slot compensating bearing under the same condition，and it has high stiffness coefficients when used under low load.