To provide a surface inspection device capable of preventing entering of unnecessary diffracted light from an inspection object into a light-receiving optical system by a simple formation, and detecting foreign matter or the like quickly, accurately and highly precisely.

This inspection device has an illumination optical system 3, 4, 5, 6 for illuminating the nearly whole surface of the inspection object 7 at a prescribed angle with the inspection object 7, and the light-receiving optical system 8, 9, 10, 11 for receiving scattered light from the foreign matter adhering on the surface of the inspection object 7. The illumination optical system 3, 4, 5, 6 comprises three or more groups of optical elements 3, 4, 5 having refracting power at least in a first plane including an optical axis of the illumination optical system, and an optical element 6 having refracting power in a second plane intersecting orthogonally at least with the first plane and including the optical axis.