The paper presents the influence of surfactants additives (anionic and cationic) on the crystalline structure (XRD), morphology (AFM), surface energy (contact angle), optical (absorbance and reflectance) and electrical properties of mono and multi-structured thin films containing SnO2, TiO2 and WO3 layers. The anionic surfactant supports the structure densification with regular grains distribution. Contrary, the films obtained using cationic surfactants have defects in the layer morphology and the samples are non-homogeneous and non-uniform. The samples have photocatalytic activity with an efficiency of 80% for the Ti sample and up to 65% for bi (Sn_Ti, Sn_W) and tri-component (Sn_W_Ti) samples. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.