In this Letter we report about ab initio calculations of the lifetime of excited electrons in Surface states of Al, Cu, and Ag. We show that at the ab initio level the decay of surface states is very much similar to that of bulk states, because in both cases it is the density of the final bulk states which matters. This shows by way of example that most probably the popular jellium-like models will fail in predicting accurate lifetimes and that the ab initio treatment of surface states is a must. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.