Abstract The study of surface magnetic anisotropy of magnetic films is beneficial to understanding the behaviors of films at high frequencies and further promoting their high-frequency magnetic applications. We investigated the out-of-plane ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) and surface spin wave modes in 40-nm Ni 80 Fe 20 (NiFe) films deposited on ripple-patterned sapphire substrate with periodicity and a flat sapphire substrate by broad-band FMR technique. When measuring the FMR of the film on ripple-patterned substrate, the in-plane angle ( H of the external applied magnetic field was along the direction of the ripples ( H = 90°) and perpendicular to the ripple direction ( H = 0°) respectively. The spin-wave resonance spectra consisting of up to two surface spin wave (SSW) modes were observed as the external magnetic field polar angle θ H varied from “in-plane configuration” ( θ H = 90° ) to “out-of-plane configuration” ( θ H = 0°). As the decrease of θ H , the two surface spin excitations disappeared in sequence and further only FMR mode was observed in the region θ H which was smaller than the “critical angle” θ c . The θ c of H = 90° is found to be different from that for H = 0°. The dependences of field shift vs. out-of-plane angles θ H for each SSW mode were analyzed by the surface inhomogeneity model. From the model, the surface anisotropy constants K s of films were obtained. The results show that the values of surface anisotropy constants for the two SSW modes are different. Compared with the film sputtered on flat sapphire substrate, after introducing ripple-patterned substrate, the variation of K s is only on the order of 0.01 erg/cm 2 for the film of this thickness.