In the present work, ZSM-5 with hexagonal cubic morphology was successfully synthesized by the hydrothermal method in the presence of tetrapropylammonium hydroxide and nonionic surfactant as mesopore template. The structural, textural, morphological and thermal properties of the as-synthesized zeolite samples were evaluated by XRD, XRF, FT-IR, N2 adsorption, HR-TEM, HR-SEM and TGA. The powder X-ray diffraction and FT-IR analysis confirms the formation of pure ZSM-5 zeolite without any impurities present. The surface area analysis showed that the mesoporous surface area was evidently increased without intensively destroying the microporosity in the surfactant-assisted zeolite. The catalytic performance of the ZSM-5 zeolites was evaluated in the liquid phase selective oxidation of toluene using tert-butyl hydroperoxide as an oxidant. The surfactant-assisted ZSM-5 shows a higher toluene conversion and benzaldehyde selectivity at optimum conditions. © 2015, Springer Science+Business Media New York.