Material deformation error is an important factor affecting the surface forming accuracy of micro cutting. However, there is still a lack of an analytical model to predict the material elastic recovery (MER) error according to the basic machining parameters. In this paper, considering the basic machining parameters, a novel theoretical model for MER was proposed. Firstly, the location of the material dead zone (MDZ) was calculated by an analytical model considering the tool edge radius. Then the thrust force was predicted through a proposed theoretical model. Finally, MER was calculated based on elastic deformation theory. The reliability and robustness of the proposed theoretical model for MER was verified by numerical simulations and scratching experiments. And influences of the basic parameters on MER were also discussed. Research results indicated that average error between theoretical calculation and measurement data of MER is only 5.97 %. It indicates that the proposed model can improve the prediction accuracy of surface topography while micro cutting.