End mill is an essential tool to generate complex surface in workpiece and it has been developed with various materials and tool shapes. The most important factor to evaluate the performance of end mill is still the wear characteristics of flank face. In addition to the flank wear, the tool edge roughness generated by the chipping is another important factor in aspects of material property and machinability evaluation and affects the quality of machined surface. Up to now, there is no direct method for measurement of tool edge roughness. In this study, the tool edge roughness of flat end mill is indirectly measured along the axial direction of workpiece. The theoretical equation is derived in consideration of tool geometry. Finally, the optimal conditions to measure the tool edge roughness by the proposed method are presented through the theoretical review and experimental identification.