A surface-emitting semiconductor laser is described, with a semiconductor chip (1), which has a substrate (2), a DBR-mirror (3) applied to the substrate (2) and an epitaxial layer sequence (4) applied to the DBR mirror (3), said layer sequence comprising a radiation-emitting active layer (5), and with an external resonator mirror (9) arranged outside the semiconductor chip (1). The DBR mirror (3) and the substrate (2) are partially transmissive for the radiation (6) emitted by the active layer (5) and the back (14) of the substrate (2) remote from the active layer (5) is reflective to the emitted radiation (6).