Femtosecond laser with wave length of 800 nm was used to perform percussion drilling experiment on nickel-based alloy with thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) in order to eliminate the damages caused by conventional drilling. Analysis of the experimental results indicated that short pulse duration and high peak power characteristics of femtosecond laser led to good processing effect on nickel-based alloy with TBCs. High quality array of holes with the taper of almost zero was generated, for which the inner diameter was 162 μm and the aspect ratio was 15:1. Femtosecond laser processing had little influence on elementary components and phase structure of coating. This study provides feasible technique involving the use of femtosecond laser for machining film cooling hole on nickel-based alloy with TBCs. © 2019 Elsevier GmbH