The work aims to study effects of various polishing pads on surface CMP (chemical mechanical polishing/planarization) process of cemented carbide cutting tools, so as to provide an effective reference for high precision chemical mechanical polishing of cemented carbide tools. With Nanopoli-100 intelligent polishing machine as experimental equipment and homemade alumina polishing fluid as polishing liquid, nine kinds of polishing pads were used to carry out CMP experiments to YG8 carbide cutting tools. Material removal rate and surface roughness in machining periods of 0~40, 40~80 and 80~120 min were compared, optimal surface morphology of the carbide cutting tools was observed, and the effects of pad characteristics on CMP result were analyzed. Provided with polishing speed of 60 r/min and polishing pressure of 177.8 kPa, only five of the polishing pads were suitable for CMP of YG8 cemented carbide tools. The surface roughness of polishing pads had most significant effects on CMP of cemented carbide tools. The higher the surface roughness of polishing pad was, the greater the removal rate of polishing material was. In addition, service time of polishing pads also affected the CMP process. The longer the service time of polishing pads was, the lower the removal rate of CMP material was. After receiving CMP by five different kinds of polishing pads, surface burns and cracks on cemented carbide tools were greatly improved. The maximum material removal rate was 47.105 nm/min after being polished with fine canvas for 40 minutes while the minimum surface roughness was 0.039 after being polished with fine canvas for 80 minutes.