We report a systematic study of the role of film thickness on the formation of magnetic domains in Gd-Fe thin films. The films having thickness up to 33 nm show no visible domain contrast, whereas the evolution of magnetic domain starts at a thickness of 50 nm. For 100 nm thick films, meandering stripe domains with long range correlation are observed with strong magnetic contrast, which symbolize the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy in the film. Our experimental result has also been complemented with 3D micromagnetic simulation. © 2017 Author(s).