A surface sizing agent is provided which has excellent dispersion stability, enables impartation of high sizing performance under a wide range of use conditions, irrespective of the characteristics of water used for sizing (hardness, pH, etc.) and the type of paper, and has low foaming property and good coating workability. Specifically, in a dispersion-type surface sizing agent obtained by emulsion polymerization of a monomer composition in the presence of a degraded dextrin, 20-40 parts by weight of a degraded dextrin having a weight average molecular weight of 26000-50000, obtained by enzyme denaturation of a waxy corn starch, are allowed to exist to 100 parts by weight of the total amount of the monomer composition, and the monomer composition includes (a) 10-35% by weight of at least one type of (meth)acrylic acid alkyl ester, (b) 40-80% by weight of other copolymerizable hydrophobic monomer, and (c) 1-10% by weight of a strong acid group-containing monomer.