Electron Beam Proximity Printing is a novel method for high throughput submicron lithography. The employed method of shadow projection of a mask pattern to the wafer requires physical holes in the mask. The so‐called mask stencil problem associated with self‐supporting masks is eliminated by using complementary masks. The required accuracy of complementary mask stitching is independent of the printed linewidth. Exposures in 1 μm thick PMMA demonstrate that with a stitching accuracy of ±0.2 μm the edge roughness at the stitching positions is ?0.1 μm. Experiments show that a prototype machine equipped with a laser interferometer of λ/8 = 79 nm resolution fulfills this requirement.