The nature of surface states in cleaved surfaces of II–VI compounds with zincblende structure is studied. The tight‐binding method is used to calculate the electronic structure of a layer of twelve (110) planes. The results show various surface bands both in the gap and in empty lenses of the projected bulk band structure. The nature of these states is discussed and a comparison with the available experiments is presented. The results support the model of ionic surface states previously proposed for these surfaces.