In order to study the effect of saturation on the creep characteristics of transversely isotropic rock, creep experiments were conducted on transversely isotropic slate under saturated and dry state employing the RYL-600 microcomputer control rock rheometer by means of hierarchical incremental loading method. Some conclusions are drawn from these experiments as follows: There are four deformation stages, i.e., instantaneous elastic deformation stage, initial creep stage, constant creep stage and accelerated creep stage, under water-saturated and dry conditions. The instantaneous elastic modulus of water-saturated slate samples is less than that of dry samples under the same loading condition. Creep rate is steady, and there is no remarkable difference of the creep rate between water-saturated and the dry at low stress level. However, creep rate increases rapidly with the increasing load, and there is the opposite situation in two cases at high stress state level. The failure stress of water-saturated slate specimen is less than that of dry slate samples, and failure stress curves both present U-shape with the increase of bedding angle.