1-Propyl-2,3-dimethyl-1H-imidazol-3-ium ([pmIm] +), 3-(2,3-dihydroxypropyl)-1,2-dimethyl-1Himidazol-3-ium ([dhmIm] +) and 1-benzyl-2,3-dimethyl-1H-imidazol-3-ium ([bzmIm] +) cations were used as organic templates for crystallizing SAPO-5 with AFI microporous framework. The physicochemical influences of the functional groups of the templates (e.g. polarity/hydrophilicity, molecular dimension and size) on SAPO-5 formation were investigated. The results revealed that the crystallization rate, crystallinity and solid yield could be enhanced by increasing the polarity/hydrophilicity of the templates. In addition, the isomorphous Si substitution, morphology and particle size of the resulted SAPO-5 were also affected by the substituted groups of the imidazolium 2 templates. The thermogravimetry results further supported that the selection of organic template with proper polarity/hydrophilicity could be crucial to obtain SAPO-5 with high porosity (SBET, Smic, Sext and Vtotal) as high polar/hydrophilic template exhibited stronger chemical interaction with the AFI framework during template removal process via calcination process.