In the surf zone, non-hydrostatic processes are either neglected or estimated using linear wave theory. The recent development of technologies capable of directly measuring the free surface elevation, such as 2-D lidar scanners, allow for a thorough assessment of the validity of such hypotheses. In this study, we use subsurface pressure and lidar data to study the non-linear and non-hydrostatic character of surf zone waves. Non-hydrostatic effects are found important everywhere in the surf zone (from the outer to the inner surf zones). Surface elevation variance, skewness, and asymmetry estimated from the hydrostatic reconstruction are found to significantly underestimate the values obtained from the lidar data. At the wave-by-wave scale, this is explained by the underestimation of the wave crest maximal elevations, even in the inner surf zone, where the wave profile around the broken wave face is smoothed. The classic transfer function based on linear wave theory brings only marginal improvements in this regard, compared to the hydrostatic reconstruction. A recently developed non-linear weakly dispersive reconstruction is found to consistently outperform the hydrostatic or classic transfer function reconstructions over the entire surf zone, with relative errors on the surface elevation variance and skewness around 5% on average. In both the outer and inner surf zones, this method correctly reproduces the steep front of breaking and broken waves and their individual wave height to within 10%. The performance of this irrotational method supports the hypothesis that the flow under broken waves is dominated by irrotational motions.< Réduire