An exposure apparatus to expose a substrate to light with a space between a projection optical system and the substrate filled with liquid. The apparatus has a stage to hold the substrate and to move, a supply unit to supply the liquid to the space, a recovery unit to recover the liquid from the space, a detector to detect a droplet of the liquid on at least one of the substrate and the stage, a removing unit configured to remove the droplet on the substrate detected by the detector, the removing unit including a slit-shaped nozzle arranged so as to vertically sandwich the substrate and blowing a gas on the substrate from the nozzle, a calculation unit to calculate at least one of a position and size of the droplet detected by the detector, and a controller to control a relative velocity between the nozzle and the substrate based on the calculation result of the calculation unit.