There is disclosed a method for manufacturing an SOI wafer comprising: a step of implanting at least one of a hydrogen ion and a rare gas ion into a donor wafer to form an ion implanted layer; a step of bonding an ion implanted surface of the donor wafer to a handle wafer; a step of delaminating the donor wafer at the ion implanted layer to reduce a film thickness of the donor wafer, thereby providing an SOI layer; and a step of etching the SOI layer to reduce a thickness of the SOI layer, wherein the etching step includes: a stage of performing rough etching as wet etching; a stage of measuring a film thickness distribution of the SOI layer after the rough etching; and a stage of performing precise etching as dry etching based on the measured film thickness distribution of the SOI layer. There can be provided A method for manufacturing an SOI wafer having high film thickness uniformity of an SOI layer with excellent productivity.