Abstract The passivation films formed during electrochemical machining (ECM) of titanium alloys hinder charge transfer, suppress continuous anodic dissolution and destabilize subsequent machining. This study investigated laser depassivation of ECM-treated TA15 alloy under fixed single-pulse laser fluence. The scanning speed was varied from 500 to 15000 mm/s, corresponding to spot overlap rates from 93.75% to -87.5%. The electrochemical measurements, chemical analyses, and TEM were used to correlate laser-treated surface states with subsequent counter-rotating electrochemical machining (CRECM) performance. The untreated ECM surface and the surfaces treated at low scanning speeds remained dominated by passivation film-controlled responses. Low scanning speeds with high overlap rates partially removed the original film but induced remelting, cracking and thermal reoxidation, increasing the oxygen content to 18.09% at 500 mm/s. At 6000 mm/s with 25% overlap rate, passivation products were effectively reduced while thermal damage was limited, obtaining the lowest oxygen content of 2.18%. Excessively high scanning speeds caused insufficient laser coverage and incomplete depassivation. TEM confirmed that the 146.3 nm ECM-induced film was almost completely removed after laser treatment, with the oxygen content decreasing to about 1.38%. Subsequent CRECM showed that Ra decreased from 87.966 μm without laser depassivation to 2.265 μm after 6000 mm/s treatment.