(57) Process for dewaxing heavy distillate and residual feed. Easily converted waxes are partially removed in a first catalytic dewaxing step, and the resulting product is separated to remove the light ends. The heavy liquid fraction, which contains difficult to convert waxes, such as poly-branched or mid-methyl branched paraffin waxes, is then introduced into a second dewaxing stage, where the liquid stream is dewaxed to a specification pour point. The process may be implemented via double pass dewaxing in existing units or by passing through two consecutive dewaxing units. Improvements are due to a decoupling of temperature requirements in each reaction step and removal of cracked products which inhibit dewaxing and accelerate aging in the second dewaxing stage.