Inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching of Co Tb and CoZrNb magnetic materials with the photoresist mask was performed using Cl2/Ar and C2F6/Ar gas mixtures and characterized in terms of etch rate and etch profile. As the concentrations of Cl2 and C2F6 gases increased, the etch rates of magnetic films decreased and the etch slopes became slanted. The Cl2/Ar gas was more effective in obtaining fast etch rate and steep sidewall slope than the C2F6/Ar gas. As the coil rf power and dc bias increased, fast etch rate and steep etch slope were obtained but the redeposition on the sidewall was observed. This is due to the increase of ion and radical densities in plasma with increasing high density reactive ion etching to magnetic tunnel junction stack containing various magnetic films and metal oxide, steep etch slope and clean etch profile without redeposition were obtained.