The influence of the cooling rate during poling by cooling in a constant field of the barium titanate ceramics was studied by ex situ piezoresponse force microscopy measurements after macroscopic poling. The rearrangement of the domain structure and the value of the averaged local piezoelectric coefficient were shown to be largely determined by the cooling rate. It was revealed that the high cooling rate stimulated increasing the domain sizes, which in turn increased the average piezoelectric response due to a better alignment of the polarization. © 2023 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.