Certain aspects of the present disclosure relate to methods and apparatus for transmitting sounding reference signals (SRS) in communications systems operating according to new radio (NR) technologies. An exemplary method that a user equipment (UE) may perform includes determining whether to transmit a sounding reference signal (SRS) using a discrete Fourier transform (DFT) spread orthogonal frequency domain multiplexing (DFT-S-OFDM) waveform or a cyclic prefix orthogonal frequency domain multiplexing (CP-OFDM) waveform, and transmitting the SRS using the determined waveform.