SURFACE-COATED CUTTING TOOL EXCELLENT IN DEFECT RESISTANCE

To provide a surface-coated cutting tool excellent in defect resistance used in the cutting work of stainless steels and steel materials on which a fusion cutting surface remains.SOLUTION: A surface-coated cutting tool has a hard coating layer having total average layer thickness of 0.6-20.0 μm including the lower and upper layers on the substrate surface of a tungsten carbide-based hard alloy. The lower layer comprises a TiW complex carbonitride, has an area of the maximum W density in which W is in a range of 0.5-5.0 atom% in the area from the outermost surface of the substrate to 0.1 μm of a layer thickness and has the area of the maximum C density in which C is in the range of 7.0-25.0 atom% in the area over the above area to 1.6 μm. The upper layer has the average layer thickness of 0.4-18.4 μm and includes an AlTi complex nitride or complex carbonitride (composition formula: AlXTi1-X)(CYN1-Y) (here, 0.75≤Xavg≤0.90 and 0≤Yavg