It was revealed that electrostatic forces between electrodes under the applied bias are almost completely suppressed by an electrochemical potential control. The force operating between n-decanethiol self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on gold was examined by atomic force microscopy in liquid n-dodecane and in an aqueous solution of HClO₄. In inert n-dodecane, the bias voltage was simply applied between the tip and the sample, and the force curve exhibited a long-range attractive force in accordance with the simple capacitance model. Meanwhile under the independent control of the tip and sample potentials in HClO₄, the force curve did not depend on the applied potentials due to the small double-layer capacitance. [DOI: 10.1380/ejssnt.2009.731]