The 2025 Annual Water & Sewer Retail Rate Survey is now available.
For more than 30 years, the Advisory Board has produced this survey to help MWRA communities compare water and sewer rates and track how those costs change over time. Every year, communities, MWRA staff, policymakers, and ratepayers use the survey to understand how local bills compare across the region and what trends are shaping water and sewer costs.
Water and sewer rates reflect much more than just annual adjustments. They are shaped by long-term infrastructure needs, regulatory requirements, operating costs, workforce challenges, and local policy decisions. This survey is meant to provide a shared, transparent data set that helps ground those conversations.
MWRA Communities: What Are Residents Paying?
To allow for consistent comparisons across communities, the survey uses the American Water Works Association (AWWA) standard of 120 HCF (hundred cubic feet) of annual household water use, which is about 90,000 gallons. This benchmark is used nationwide and allows communities with very different rate structures to be compared using the same level of consumption as well as comparing the rate of increase over time.
It is important to note that all retail charges discussed in this section apply only to MWRA communities. In some cases, a community may receive MWRA water but not MWRA sewer service, or vice versa. In those cases, the survey still reflects the retail charges residents actually pay, even if a portion of that service is provided locally or by another supplier.
Using all retail water and sewer charges shown in the survey for MWRA communities, the average annual water charge in 2025 is $839, the average annual sewer charge is $1,259, and the average combined water and sewer bill is $2,099, where both services are present. The average year-over-year increase in combined bills is about 4.4%.
Across the system, there is a wide range in what households pay at the 120 HCF benchmark. On the higher end are communities such as Winthrop, Somerville, and Nahant, where combined annual charges exceed $2,900. Near the middle of the range are communities like Brookline, Norwood, and Canton, which are close to the system-wide average. On the lower end are communities such as Woburn, Clinton, and Burlington, where combined annual charges are under $1,000.
These differences reflect local conditions, infrastructure age, density, service mix, and capital needs. The survey is intended to support comparison and context, not to rank or judge individual communities.
What 120 HCF Looks Like in Practice
The survey uses 120 hundred cubic feet (HCF) as a benchmark to compare water and sewer costs across communities and track changes over time. This level, equivalent to roughly 90,000 gallons per year, is commonly used in rate surveys and industry benchmarking because it provides a consistent reference point for evaluating how different rate structures perform on an apples-to-apples basis.
That said, 120 HCF does not reflect how much water most households actually use in MWRA communities.
To provide additional context, the survey also incorporates actual residential water use data reported by communities to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) through their Annual Public Water Supply Reports. In many MWRA communities, average household water use is closer to 50 to 60 HCF per year, well below the benchmark level.
This naturally raises the question: why don’t we just use these numbers? The challenge is that actual-use data is not standardized. Water use varies widely by community and can change from year to year based on weather, household characteristics, and local conditions. Without a consistent framework, these figures are difficult to use for meaningful comparisons across municipalities.
To help address this, the Advisory Board includes Local/State/Federal (LSF) cost estimates in the survey. These estimates are designed to provide a standardized way to compare typical residential water and sewer costs across MWRA communities while still reflecting real-world usage patterns. The LSF calculations combine multiple data sources: water and sewer usage information reported by municipalities (local) to MassDEP (state), along with U.S. Census data (federal) used to estimate the number of households served. By applying each community’s adopted retail rates to these combined data sets, the Advisory Board can estimate representative annual costs in a consistent manner. To improve transparency, the full calculation methodology, source data, and assumptions are documented in the Appendices.
Melrose provides a clear example of how these different views can lead to different conclusions. At the 120 HCF benchmark, Melrose appears to have one of the higher combined water and sewer bills in the MWRA system. However, Melrose reports an average household water use of roughly 54 HCF per year. When that actual use level is applied, the annual bill paid by a typical household is significantly lower than the benchmark suggests, with both the water and sewer portions of the bill dropping accordingly.
The survey includes both views because they answer different questions. The 120 HCF benchmark allows for consistent comparison across communities and over time, while actual-use and LSF estimates provide a more realistic picture of what households are paying, recognizing that those figures vary by community and from year to year.
Beyond the Numbers
Rates alone don’t tell the full story. The survey also includes a “Beyond the Numbers” section, which collects information on topics that affect rates but don’t always show up in a bill comparison. This year’s questions focused on enterprise fund structures, billing and metering practices, PFAS compliance, the Lead and Copper Rule, and workforce challenges. Community participation was strong, and the responses provide helpful context alongside the rate data.
Enterprise Fund Data from DLS
This year’s survey includes enterprise fund data from the Massachusetts Division of Local Services (DLS). These figures were included because community-reported budget information varied widely in format and clarity. Using DLS data provided a consistent statewide source and avoided publishing information that might not be fully comparable.
Members noted that enterprise fund data is often used in affordability work, including analyses done by firms such as Tighe & Bond. Expanding that type of analysis could be valuable, but it would likely involve tradeoffs with other parts of the survey, such as narrowing the scope of non-MWRA or national comparisons.
Non-MWRA Communities
The survey also includes water and sewer rates for nearly 300 non-MWRA communities across Massachusetts, grouped by county. This section provides broader statewide context and allows MWRA communities to see how their rates compare beyond the MWRA service area.
Outreach to non-MWRA communities and compilation of the non-MWRA rate data were completed with support from Bernadette Russo, a student from Northeastern University working toward a Master of Science degree in Environmental Science and Policy, who assisted the Advisory Board from July through December 2025.
National Comparisons
The national section of the survey now includes more than 30 major U.S. cities, such as Chicago, Atlanta, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Portland (OR), Santa Fe, and Seattle. These systems operate under very different conditions and often use more complex rate structures than those seen in Massachusetts.
The purpose of this section is to provide perspective, not direct comparison, and to highlight how varied water and sewer systems can be across the country.
Stormwater: Additional Context in Appendix E
Stormwater funding continues to evolve rapidly across the MWRA service area and does not fit neatly into traditional water and sewer rate comparisons.
To provide additional context, the 2025 survey includes Appendix E: Stormwater Fees, the first comprehensive update since 2022. As of 2025, eight MWRA communities have active stormwater fees—Boston, Ashland, Canton, Chicopee, Dedham, Milton, Newton, and Reading—with Braintree and Lexington moving toward implementation.
Appendix E explains why communities are adopting stormwater utilities, the types of fee structures being used, and how revenues support MS4 compliance, drainage maintenance, water quality improvements, and capital investments. Boston’s stormwater utility, launched in 2024, is a notable example of how stormwater costs are becoming more visible as they are separated from sewer rates.
Looking Ahead: A Working Group to Refine the Survey
During discussion of this year’s survey, members raised several important questions that point toward the need for a focused, internal working group made up of MWRA community representatives and Advisory Board staff.
Topics raised include how best to present the 120 HCF benchmark alongside actual usage data, how to reflect stormwater fees without distorting long-term sewer trends, and how enterprise fund and affordability metrics might be incorporated more clearly. Members also noted that stormwater costs may be funded through sewer rates, general funds, or separate utilities, depending on the community.
The goal of a working group would not be to overhaul the survey overnight, but to help guide how it evolves over time, balancing clarity, consistency, and usefulness with the reality of limited staff capacity in a small office. The survey remains one of the Advisory Board’s most requested publications, and these conversations reflect a shared interest in making it as strong and transparent as possible.
Read the Full Survey
The full 2025 Water & Sewer Retail Rate Survey, including community-by-community data, non-MWRA comparisons, national context, and the stormwater addendum, is available on the Advisory Board’s website.
📓 Read the full report here!
