A surface inspection apparatus for observing an edge portion of an object to be inspected includes an illumination device that irradiates an illumination light to the edge portion; and an observation device that forms an image of an observation region of the edge portion illuminated with the illumination light. The illumination device emits a first irradiation beam and a second irradiation beam as the illumination light. The first irradiation beam is incident at approximately right angles to the edge portion for compensating brightness of the image and the second irradiation beam is obliquely incident laterally to the observation region of the edge portion for generating a shadow depending on a surface state of the observation region.