To provide a surface-coated cutting tool that exhibits excellent peeling resistance and chipping resistance under heavy cutting conditions with high-speed, large depth of cut and high feed rate in which a high load is exerted on a cutting edge.
In a surface-coated cutting tool including a tool body that is made of a tungsten carbide-based cemented carbide or a titanium carbonitride-based cermet and a hard coating layer that includes a lower layer and an upper layer and formed on a surface of the tool body, the lower layer is composed of a Ti compound layer including at least a TiCN layer; the upper layer includes an Al 2 O 3 layer having an α-type crystal structure; regarding Al 2 O 3 crystal grains of the upper layer, in a case where a coincidence grain boundary distribution graph is measured, sulfur is segregated in a grain boundary of ∑31 or more and a grain boundary length thereof is 20% to 50% relative to the whole grain boundary length in the constituent atom sharing lattice point form of ∑3 or more; and absolute values of residual stress values of a flank face and a rake face including at least a cutting edge ridge line part of the upper layer are 100 MPa or less.