Purpose: A novel low profile frequency selective surface (FSS) with a band-stop response at 10 GHz is demonstrated. The purpose of this designed FSS structure is to reject the X-band (8-12 GHz) for the application of shielding. The proposed FSS structure having the unit cell dimension of 8 × 8 mm2, the miniaturization of the FSS unit cell in terms of λ0 is 0.266 λ0 × 0.266 λ0, where λ0 is free space wavelength. The designed FSS provides 4 GHz bandwidth with insertion loss of 15 dB. The transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) modes of the proposed design are same because of polarization independent characteristics and hold the angularly stable frequency response for both TE and TM mode polarization. Both the simulation and measurement results are in good agreement to each other. Design/methodology/approach: The proposed FSS design contains square-shaped PEC material, which is placed on the substrate and the shape of the circle and rectangle is etched over the PEC material. The PEC material of the patch dimension is 0.0175 mm. The substrate used for the proposed design is FR4 lossy with the thickness of 0.8 mm and permittivity εr = 4.3 having a loss tangent of 0.02. Findings: To find a new design and miniaturized FSS structure is discussed. Originality/value: 100%. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.