Surface ablation of cobalt-cemented tungsten carbide hardmetal has been carried out in this work using a 308 nm, 20 ns XeCl excimer laser. The influence of ablation rate, surface roughness, surface micromorphology as well as surface phase structure on laser conditions including laser irradiance and pulse number have been investigated. The experimental results showed that the ablation rate and surface roughness were controlled by varying the number of pulses and laser irradiance. The microstructure and crystalline structure of irradiated surface layer varied greatly with different laser conditions. After 300 shots of laser irradiation at irradiance of 125 MW/cm(2), the surface micromorphology characterizing a uniform framework pattern of "hill-valleys". With the increment of laser shots at laser irradiance of 125 MW/cm(2), the microstructure of cemented tungsten carbide transformed from original polygon grains with the size of 3 mum to interlaced large and long grains after 300 shots of laser irradiation, and finally to gross grains with the size of 10 mum with clear grain boundaries after 700 shots. The crystalline structure of irradiated area has partly transformed from original WC to beta -WC1-x, then to alpha -W2C and CW3, and finally to W crystal. At proper laser irradiance and pulse number, cobalt binder has been selectively removed from the surface layer of hardmetal. it has been demonstrated that surface ablation with pulsed UV laser should be a feasible way to selectively remove cobalt binder from surface layer of cemented tungsten carbide hardmetal.