Is tap water free in the United States?

29 comments

1. It’s not free.

2. We do pay a *water* utility bill. It is for general water usage – could be tap water from your kitchen sink, could be water to fill up your toilet after a flush, could be a shower, could be watering your yard with sprinklers. They do not measure how much water usage is specifically tap water or garden hose water or bathtub water.

   edit: If your house is on a well water system with septic tank, which is not *too* uncommon still, then you actually don’t pay a water bill on that.

3. I get a utility bill every month that includes electric, water, sewage, and waste removal. It averages around 100 to 150 a month. Everyone has to pay to keep things working

4. No, we get billed for it, city dept. of water & sewers.

5. Municipal water? No not usually.

   In an area where the water is supplied by a municipality you will have a water bill. It’s often a combined bill for water & sewage, but it’s always a billable item(s). The average water bill for a family is around $70 a month, but can vary widely from one area or one system to another.

   In more rural places people will have their own wells so the water isn’t an outright bill but the machinery & maintenance of the pump, well and related items is a cost to the owner.

6. Nothing is free.

7. Me and my husband pay for it in our apartment but it’s rolled into our rent as being $21 dollars per month

8. It is paid for by taxes, utility bills, or by what it costs to have a well.

   I have a well in my front yard and the only cost is the electricity to run the pump which is very cheap.

   Tap water is so cheap, clean, and ubiquitous it is essentially “free” in the US but there is still a cost. Anywhere you go almost certainly has free tap water at no cost to you. Like today I went to a church and drank from a water fountain for free, I went to my local middle school where my daughter plays basketball and water was free from a fountain/water bottle filling spigot, and I had dinner at a pizza place with a soda fountain that you can get water from at no cost and they even give you a free cup to get that water. The ice there is free too.

9. No, my city’s utility providers charged about 3-4 cents per gallon for residential customers (although about 2/3 of that was for sewer charges, which are calculated based on your water usage).

   Business/bulk users were given a much lower per-usage rate.

10. To add to what others have already said, public parks around me all have water fountains, and most have been converted to have a nozzle for dispensing into water bottles. There are water fountains at the dog parks with the same quality water for our dogs. Clean drinking water is effectively free in urban and suburban areas.

11. I pay around $10 per month. I have *very* water efficient toilets, showers and appliances, and use rain barrels for the outside gardens.

12. I pay a water utility bill to my apartment complex

13. You pay a bill based on usage, though its relatively little per gallon.

    High bills involve watering a good sized yard, a lot of baths and laundry for a large household keeping a pool topped off, that kinda thing.

14. Most cities do have a small fee for water/sewer usage. All the apartments I lived in had water included in the rent, but a townhouse I lived in did charge about $10 a month.

    We forgot to pay the bill one month and they actually had someone come to shut the water off over a $10 late bill and we had to go to the government office to pay it and wait a week for someone to come back out to turn the water on.

    And in rural South Dakota, the family farm had a well for water or would haul tanks of water in from the city. They finally got hooked up to tap water a few years ago, but even after subsidies were charged close to $10,000 by the water utility for the cost of connecting them to the nearest water main.

15. Yes we pay for water. I pay my city for water that is piped to my house and sewer usage in the same bill. We are charged for what we use based on our home’s water meter reading.

16. Nope. If you rent or own a home you pay a water bill every month, usually to the county or some private company that has a monopoly over the county. Vast majority of apartments I have lived in include water in your rent.

    Edit: someone else was right and I forgot. If you’re on a well, you do not pay a water bill. Like a lot of California, Arizona, and Nevada residents have found recently, wells are drying up everywhere. If your well dries up and you need to drill another, if you even can, the droughts have created an almost 10yr waitlist for well drillers. Drilling a new well can also easily set you back 20k-50k with no guarantee they will actually find water. Rough situation.

17. At our last house we paid a water charge, but were on a septic system so we didn’t get a sewerage charge on top of it. We also had a well, but being in Florida is was sulfurous and not drinkable. We used the well for irrigation and to fill the pool. Municipal water was for all the household needs, and cost us around $15 a month.

18. I live in a rural community that has our own municipal water system. I actually wasn’t sure what that was so I googled and found this:

    “Rural water districts and municipal water providers receive a permit to use water from a nearby lake, stream or their own groundwater well, all of which are metered and reported monthly to the DEQ.”

    Our community has its own water board made up of volunteers. They set the pay and take care of all issues we may have. We pay a flat $35 a month for unlimited water usage. We all have septic tanks so no waste removal fees.

19. If you’re renting a home/apt it is possible (not always) the water would be free. I haven’t paid for water in 13 years or more.

20. Normally you pay unless you have your own well which is common in rural areas.

21. Yes. Here’s Las Vegas’s water billing info, which is priced on the assumption everyone needs to afford enough water for basic household use and so the first few thousand gallons are cheap, but that outdoor use can add up much, much faster, and so larger amounts get very, very expensive.

    https://www.lvvwd.com/customer-service/pay-bill/water-rates.html

22. I live alone. My water bill is maybe $6 a month

23. Is it free elsewhere? Or just part of the services received through extremely high taxes? How does the utility provider monitor anyone for excessive usage?

24. I assume your real question is “how come restaurants in the US give you free tap water?”

25. I have a well— technically it’s not free, because I paid to install the well, and I pay to upkeep the water softener so that my well water doesn’t turn me into a red head. But there’s no monthly fee for it

26. I have a well and a septic system. The only thing I pay for is a little extra electricity to run my well pump.

27. We pay but it’s essentially free

    My utility charges a flat $9/month for service and $0.008 per gallon used

28. You have to pay a water bill, but it’s usually not much.

    That is, unless you have a well. Then it’s free except for the electricity used by the pump.

29. No. It’s not free actually anywhere. You either pay for usage or you pay a tax. I prefer usage fee