Average household bill, England and Wales, 2026/27: £639/yr, +£33 (+5.4%) on the period before, source dated 1 April 2026. You cannot switch, so nobody sells you a comparison. Here is what every company charges anyway.
As of 1 April 2026, average household bill, England and Wales, 2026/27 is £639 a year. Water £309 plus sewerage £330. In force from 1 April 2026.
Water £309 plus sewerage £330. In force from 1 April 2026.
Source: Water UK
Put in your annual water and sewerage bill. It is worked out in your browser and sent nowhere.
Compared against the England and Wales average. Your own company average is often the fairer test, and it is in the table below.
What you pay here depends on where you live. Put your postcode in and we will show your area's figure rather than the national one.
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Your postcode and your figures never leave this browser. If I cannot work out what you mean, those words are sent to be classified, and a bill photo goes only if you send one and confirm it. Nothing is stored either way. How that works.
Below: what is changing, what you could be paying, and what you might be owed. The longer detail stays folded until you want it.
The averages above are one number a year. What you actually pay is your company's rate per cubic metre, its standing charge, and whether it bills surface water drainage separately or folds it in. Every company publishes that in its own charges scheme, a PDF of thirty to sixty pages, and no regulator collects them, because you cannot switch and so nobody has ever had a commercial reason to.
We read all of them we could reach, twice, and put the arithmetic on one page.
Search the average water bill and you will be told anything from £415 to £759. They are not contradicting each other so much as measuring different things: real terms against cash, water only against water and sewerage, old years against this one, one nation against another. Here is the single official figure and why every other number is higher or lower.
Every figure on this page has a history, and we keep it: what the charge has been year by year, with the date each change took effect and the body that set it, across the TV Licence, prescriptions, dental bands, regulated rail fares and the average water bill.
Routinely unclaimed. We do not administer any of these and take nothing for pointing at them.
Caps your bill at the company's average household bill. Average saving £325 a year. 260,800 households on it.
You need a meter, a means tested benefit, and either a medical condition requiring extra water or three or more children under 19 in full time education.
Discounts from roughly 20% to 99%, set by each company. 1.96 million customers, average reduction £190.
Income based. Thresholds vary by company, typically £17,000 to £30,000 household income. Severn Trent's Big Difference Scheme goes up to £411 off below £24,454.
Rebates water lost through a leak on your own supply pipe, and can adjust sewerage charges too.
Metered customers. Largely discretionary and the policies differ by company. Typically you must repair within 30 days of finding it.
Knowing what a bill should cost is no use if you cannot afford it. None of this costs anything and none of it goes through us.
It is illegal to disconnect a household for non payment of water. Anyone telling you otherwise is wrong.
Every company has one, they are all different, and reductions run from about £120 to over £400 a year. It is a postcode lottery, but the discount is real.
Caps your bill at the company average, saving about £325 a year. You need a meter, a means tested benefit, and either a medical need for extra water or three or more children under 19.
Companies will spread the bill, and will usually rebate water lost to a leak on your own supply pipe if you fix it promptly.
The independent consumer body for water. Free, and it takes up complaints against companies on your behalf.
The things that stop the headline figure being misread.
Already dated. Nothing here is a forecast.
WaterSure reform takes effect. Income cap £25,745, eligibility extended to PIP, DLA and Attendance Allowance, automatic enrolment replaces application. About 53,000 more households.
WaterSure reform takes effect in England during early 2027, widening eligibility to people on Disability Living Allowance, Attendance Allowance or Personal Independence Payment with household income under £25,745, and capping single occupant bills at the average one person bill.
The full published figures, for anyone who wants to check our working or find their own line.
Combined water and sewerage. Water UK publishes the combined figure only, so the split by company is not available from a primary source.
Scroll sideways to see every column
| Company | Combined bill | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southern Water | £759 | +£55 | 8% |
| South West Water | £740 | +£39 | 6% |
| Wessex Water | £695 | +£17 | 3% |
| Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water | £683 | +£31 | 5% |
| Anglian Water | £674 | +£44 | 7% |
| United Utilities | £660 | +£57 | 9% |
| Thames Water | £658 | +£3 | 0.4% |
| Yorkshire Water | £636 | +£34 | 6% |
| Hafren Dyfrdwy | £635 | +£54 | 9% |
| Severn Trent Water | £587 | +£52 | 10% |
| Northumbrian Water | £535 | +£31 | 6% |
These figures are the water element alone. Your sewerage is billed separately by the regional wastewater company on top, so your total bill is higher than the number shown. Two names here are regions rather than companies: Bournemouth Water is a separately charged region of South West Water Limited and still publishes its own charges scheme, and Essex and Suffolk is a separately charged region of Northumbrian Water.
Scroll sideways to see every column
| Company | Water element | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essex and Suffolk Water | £333 | +£15 | 5% |
| South East Water | £324 | +£21 | 7% |
| Affinity Water, South East | £294 | +£3 | 1% |
| Affinity Water, East | £280 | +£1 | 0.4% |
| Affinity Water, Central | £266 | +£31 | 13% |
| Bristol Water | £264 | +£29 | 12% |
| SES Water | £257 | +£26 | 11% |
| South Staffs Water | £230 | +£6 | 2% |
| South Staffs, Cambridge region | £210 | +£7 | 3% |
| Portsmouth Water | £162 | +£13 | 8% |
Anglian, Northumbrian, South East, Southern and Wessex disputed Ofwat's price review settlement. The CMA raised their allowed return from 4.03% to 4.20% and awarded £463m of additional revenue, about 17% of what they asked for. Expect roughly 2.2% on those customers' bills across the five year period. The five serve about seven million households.
Source: CMA
The income cap rises to £25,745 and eligibility extends to people receiving PIP, DLA or Attendance Allowance, bringing in about 53,000 more households. The medical practitioner's note is dropped for unlisted conditions and automatic enrolment replaces the application. A new single occupier cap is introduced. About 53,000 single households save an extra £100 and about 130,000 multi occupant households save around £26.
Source: gov.uk
The average household bill in England and Wales for 2026/27 is £639, made up of £309 for water and £330 for sewerage, up 5.4%. Southern Water is dearest at £759 and Northumbrian cheapest at £535, a £224 spread for a service nobody can switch away from. Severn Trent took the largest rise among the big companies at 10%; Thames took 0.4%.
Source: Water UK
A New Vision for Water confirms support stays company by company, with an average £640m a year available for low income customers to 2030 and an industry commitment to address water poverty by that date. It also proposes abolishing Ofwat in favour of a single integrated regulator, with no date set. Campaigners at CCW and Independent Age continue to press for one national scheme.
Do not assume a national scheme exists. What you get depends entirely on which company happens to serve your postcode.
Source: Defra
Water UK publishes a combined figure per company. The split between water and sewerage by company is not available from a primary source, only the national split of £309 and £330.
Ofwat's own website refused every automated request while this page was built. The Ofwat material here comes from the official press mirror, the CMA and gov.uk rather than from Ofwat directly.
There is no published year by year bill path for 2026/27 to 2029/30. Only the start and end points of the price review are official. Anything showing a year by year trajectory is somebody's projection.
Water company boundaries follow river catchments, not postcodes. Where we match a postcode to a company we say so is approximate, and where an area is split between two companies we show both rather than guess.
Bristol Water is no longer a separate company. Ofgem's water equivalent, Ofwat, terminated the Bristol Water licence on 1 February 2023 and varied the South West Water licence to cover the area, after Pennon bought the business. Separate price controls, and therefore separate charges, are kept for the Bristol Water area, which is why it still bills under its own name. Bristol Water's own charges scheme says so.
Averages are one number a year. What your company actually charges per cubic metre, per year and per pound of rateable value is on the water charges page, read from each company's own charges scheme.
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