A surface acoustic wave apparatus has a configuration by which the spurious of the higher-order transverse modes is suppressed and a SAW excitation intensity distribution is not changed in the propagation direction. The surface acoustic wave apparatus has at least one interdigital transducer, which is disposed such that a plurality of comb-shape electrodes respectively connected to common electrodes are interleaved, wherein a region with the plurality of interleaved comb-shape electrodes has a first overlapping region with a overlapping length constant over a whole area along a propagation direction of a surface acoustic wave and a second overlapping region formed on at least one side of the first overlapping region with a overlapping length weighted in the propagation direction of the surface acoustic wave, and wherein an overlapping-length weighting envelope curve in the second overlapping region has at least two changing points in the propagation direction of the surface acoustic wave.