By testing against collected data from twelve surfactant additives, criteria for a given surfactant as a competent additive in enhancing nucleate boiling heat transfer of water is proposed in this work. As a result of the criteria, high solubility, high equilibrium surface tension depression, and low equilibrium contact angle depression are required. A surfactant is incapable of enhancing boiling of water, in which it dissolves sparsely. For a highly soluble surfactant, boiling heat transfer enhancement by its addition is enhanced by the depression of equilibrium surface tension but suppressed by the depression of equilibrium contact angle. These two effects counterbalance each other and result in different degrees of boiling enhancement. Surfactant additives can be categorized accordingly.