The work aims to study the effect of plasma etching process on the structure and bonding strength of chromizing layer on the surface of 8Cr17 high carbon martensitic stainless steel. 8Cr17 steel was firstly etched with four different process pa-rameters by microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition method, and then the double glow plasma surface alloying was applied to prepare chromizing alloy layer on the etched 8Cr17 surface. Scanning electron microscopy, laser scanning confocal microscopy, glow discharge optical emission spectrometer and X-ray diffraction were used to characterize the morphology of etched surface and microstructure of chromizing layer. The bond strength between chromizing layer and substrate was measured by a scratch tester. The surface roughness increased, but the surface carbon was consumed after hydrogen and hydrogen + argon etching. The chromizing layer with Cr, Cr23C6 and Cr7C3 was composed of surface Cr rich layer/CrxCy diffusion layer/substrate. The thickness of the chromizing layer formed on the pretreated surface after hydrogen etching for 1 h and 2 h was 7.5 μm and 7.5 μm, and hy-drogen + argon etching for 1 h and 2 h was 8.1 μm and 9 μm, respectively, and the chromizing layer after hydrogen + argon etching for 1 h was dense and had a strong adherence to substrate. The etching process obviously results in an increase of the diffusion thickness as well as bonding strength between chromizing alloy layer and substrate.