Concerns about the non-renewability of fossil fuels and environmental pollution have led to the exploration of alternatives to fossil hydrocarbon resources to supply chemicals and energy. 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) is considered to be a key bio-renewable platform molecule and is one of the ten most important platform chemicals listed by U.S. Department of Energy. The use of appropriate oxidants and a heterogeneous catalyst is quite advantageous for converting HMF into FDCA. In this work, density functional theory calculations with on-site Coulomb repulsion U terms were carried out to investigate the 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) adsorption on the CuO(111) and Co₃O₄(110) surfaces. The adsorption energy depends on both the coordination type of surface oxygen to which the hydrogen binds and the possible formation of H-bond involving hydroxyl and formyl groups on the adsorbed HMF. Also, the hydroxyl O−H bond breaking is very easy and is likely to be the first step in HMF oxidation, and then the OH insertion reaction to produce 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA).