A technique called off-axis microscopic interferometry is developed to measure the surface profile of microstructures. This technique involves the use of a modified Mach-Zehnder microscopic interferometer with a tilted reference wave. The technique uses a CCD camera to record the off-axis microscopic interferogram and performs filtering in the Fourier plane via the Fourier transform method for phase retrieval. In contrast to classical microscopic interferometry, the carrier frequency of the off-axis microscopic interferogram is sufficiently high to facilitate acquisition of the phase from only one interferogram. As a result, measurements using this technique are vibration-immune and efficient. The experimental results obtained for a step height standard as well as a microhole array are consistent with measurements taken using a stylus profilometer. Further, the results of a comparative experiment conducted using a Mirau interferometric microscope show that the carrier frequency added to the classical microscopic interferogram cannot be as high as that of off-axis microscopic interferogram. Therefore, it will lead to incorrect phase retrieval with one interferogram.