A harmonic expansion representation of the intermolecular interaction has been exploited to obtain the potential energy surface (PES) for the C6H6-He, -Ne, -Ar, -Kr and -Xe systems in an analytical form. Basic data employed are binding energy, equilibrium distance and long-range attraction predicted by a semi-empirical method for selected configurations of the complexes. For those favorable cases where additional information are available the proposed PESs exhibit features in good agreement with those derived from spectroscopy and scattering experiments and/or ab initio calculations. The availability of realistic PESs expressed in an analytical form opens new perspectives of calculations in molecular dynamics and spectroscopic simulations where the benzene molecule and rare gas atoms are involved. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.