In this article, our interest is to investigate the free convection boundary-layer flow of a nanofluid past a sinusoidal semi-infinite vertical surface in the non-absorbing medium. The contribution of surface radiative heat flux is employed in the boundary conditions with the help of Stefan-Boltzmann law. Governing equations are transformed into a non-conserved dimensionless system and integrated numerically by means of an implicit finite difference scheme. The accuracy of numerical method is assessed by a comparison of the present results with the earlier published work and it is found that there exists a favorable agreement between the two. Our problem is subject to the influence of a set of parameters, which appear due to the presence of surface radiation, nanoparticles, and transverse curvature of vertical wall. It is noticed that radiative length parameter A and surface radiation parameter R contribute in a reduction of local skin friction coefficient and local Nusselt number. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.