The effect of rate of deposition on the scaling properties of roughness during surface growth is studied by silver electrodeposition in a flow cell and atomic force microscopy measurements. The rate of growth is controlled by the applied current density. The Ag-electrodeposited surface becomes rougher as the current density increases, approaching the diffusion limiting current. Furthermore, as the current density increases, the number of growth sites decreases and the lateral surface features become wider. Scaling analysis of the self-affine surface indicates that the saturated root-mean-square height increases with increasing current density, over a range of 2 decades; however, below saturation, the dependence is more complicated: Initially, there is no local effect; however, as the rate increases, negative local effect is observed, indicating that the local roughness grows more slowly at higher rates, as the current approaches the diffusion limiting current in the electrolyte. The discrepancy between the obtained average roughness exponent alpha=0.52 and the growth rate exponent beta(r)=0.3, similar to experiments under low deposition rate and for various deposition times (alpha=0.62, beta(t)=0.71), indicates that the rate plays a decisive role in the selection of the growth kinetics by affecting the initial number of nucleation sites and their subsequent merge. Only at low rates, the rate and the time of growth behave interchangeably, and therefore the roughness scales with the average height, the product of the rate, and the time of growth. (c) 2005 The Electrochemical Society. All rights reserved.