<p>Conventional geogrids show reinforcing effects only after undergoing large settlements, which is unacceptable in many applications. Prestressing the geogrid before placement in the soil can minimise the settlement requirement. The present study demonstrates the advantage of prestressed-geogrid-reinforcement (PGR) in comparison with unreinforced (UR) and conventional geogrid-reinforced (GR) soil based on parametric numerical analyses. Specific emphasis is given to optimising the footing response, considering its shape, depth of placement, interference with adjacent footings, and the number of reinforcing layers below the foundation. A series of displacement-controlled static compression tests are carried out on a shallow foundation resting on a weak layered soil media using PLAXIS 3D. The results show that prestressing can enhance load-carrying capacity by 200% while simultaneously reducing the settlement by 66% with respect to conventional GR soil, even at small deformations. The load-bearing capacity increases with increasing footing depth, whereas it reduces when a circular footing is used instead of a square footing. The zone of influence between two adjacent square footings also increases with prestressing, resulting in maximum improvement for PGR soil. The required number of geogrid layers for maximum improvement is lower for PGR soil than GR soil, highlighting the economic advantage of prestressing.</p>