Aiming at the phenomenon that feed rate affects the error of machine tool, the influence of feed rate on the compensation effect of CNC machine tool under error compensation is studied. Taking the X and Y working planes of CNC machine tools as an example, firstly, the positioning errors of X and Y axes are measured and compensated by a laser interferometer. Secondly, the X and Y axes of the machine tool are controlled to move in a circular trajectory at different feed rates, and the double ball bar is used to measure the contour error of the circular trajectory. The results show that the contour error of CNC machine tools increases with the increase of feed rate, which verifies that the contour error is proportional to the square of feed rate. At the same time, by comparing the error compensation effect under static state and different feed rates, it is found that the latter has a poor compensation effect, only reducing the roundness error by 26.6 %, indicating that the feed rate seriously affects the error compensation effect. Therefore, considering the influence of feed rate when compensating the error of machine tool can better reflect the actual error of machine tool, improve the compensation effect, and provide a theoretical basis for the comprehensive error modeling of machine tool.