A sedimentological study of the Neogene continental infill of the Subandean foreland basin of Ecuador led us to define an evolution of the fluvial system from an alluvial plain to an alluvial fan with an increasing slope in the same time as the drainage changed from mostly longitudinal to transverse. Combined with the data presently available on palaeotopography, exhumation, tectonic evolution and geomorphology, these results enable us to infer that, in contrast with the other Subandean foreland basins of Bolivia and Peru, the progradation of the Neogene alluvial fans proceeded by an overall expansion, associated with a relatively small tectonic shortening and not as a result of the development of successive thrust-related depocentres. This also indicates that the surrection of the Cordillera progressed in Ecuador throughout the Neogene.