4H-SiC epitaxy and polished bulk surfaces were examined with atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscopy before and after reactive ion etching of the surface with fluorinated plasmas. The etching processes were SF6/O-2 and CHF3/H-2/O-2 based recipes with fairly high de bias (420 and 367 V, respectively). Both etch recipes have negligible impact on polished bulk surface roughness, but both recipes did reduce the epitaxial surface roughness from similar to 0.892 to similar to 0.45 nm root-mean-square roughness.