Experimental air-liquid interfacial tension data are presented for benzene, measured at atmospheric pressure at 14 temperatures in the temperature range from 280 to 314 K. The measurements were performed by the Wilhelmy plate method using a Kruss K100MK2 tensiometer. The obtained results substantially extend the database of high quality data for air-liquid surface tension of benzene available from the literature. Standard reference values for the air-liquid and vapor-liquid surface tension of benzene are presented, developed based on the present data and data compiled from the literature, using a procedure, which does not consists in any single data selection, nor any single correlation. The procedure makes do without the uncertainty estimates and other factors that affect the experimental data credibility. The confidence limits at 0.95 confidence level of the proposed standard reference values are estimated to be 0.04 mN m(-1) and 0.06 mN m(-1) for the air-liquid and vapor-liquid benzene surface tension, respectively. The accuracy of the proposed standard reference data is better than that of the correlations available in the literature. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.