We study the effect of surface tension on the flattening of a surface perturbed by a point load subsequent to its removal. The surface bounds an infinite isotropic linear viscoelastic incompressible half space. The point load is initially applied for a sufficiently long time so that the half space is fully relaxed before the load removal. An exact solution is obtained assuming small deformation. We then specialize our theory to the case of a standard viscoelastic solid. There is an initial reduction of the surface displacement immediately after load removal that is found to be directly proportional to the ratio of applied load to surface tension. This is followed by a temporal decay of the surface profile that depends only on the relaxation time and the long and short time moduli of the viscoelastic solid. Our work also provides the Green's function for a suddenly applied point load on the surface of a viscoelastic half space. (C) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.