Abstract Surface entropy of liquid transition and noble metals has been investigated using an expression obtained from the hard-sphere (HS) theory of liquid. The expression is developed from the Mayer's extended surface tension formula [Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids 380 (2013) 42–47]. For interionic interaction in metals, Brettonet–Silbert (BS) pseudopotentials and embedded atom method (EAM) potentials have been used. The liquid structure is described by the variational modified hypernetted chain (VMHNC) theory. The essential ingredient of the expression is the temperature dependent effective HS diameter (or packing fraction), which is calculated from the aforementioned potentials together with the VMHNC theory. The obtained results for the surface entropy using the effective HS diameter are found to be good in agreement with the available experimental as well as other theoretical values.