Surfactant-assisted aqueous phase exfoliation is an effective method for preparing high-quality graphene. The advantages of surfactant-assisted aqueous phase exfoliation method were summarized, including environmentally-friendly, suitable for large-scale production and can easily obtained high quality and high yield of graphene. On this basis, the research progress of different surfactant-assisted aqueous phase exfoliation methods in recent years was reviewed. Among them, ionic sur-factant-assisted exfoliation of graphene, including alkyl anionic surfactant-assisted exfoliation of graphite, biliary surfactant-assisted exfoliation of graphite and pyrene derivative-assisted exfoliation of graphite were emphasized. Non-ionic surfactant assisted graphene stripping, including polyvinyl pyrrolidone assisted graphite stripping, polyether surfactant assisted graphite stripping and polyvinyl imid-azole polymer assisted graphite stripping. The preparation process, physicochemical properties of surfactants and the structure and properties of prepared graphene were summarized and compared for various surfactant-assisted aqueous phase stripping methods. Finally, we prospected the development trend of liquid phase exfoliation method for preparing graphene.