City of Austin Water & Wastewater (Austin Water)

Provider briefing

How this utility’s billing works

City of Austin Water & Wastewater (Austin Water) operates as a municipal department serving Austin and portions of the surrounding Austin service area, primarily in Travis County. Customers should use the provider’s current account-specific bill and official customer-service instructions as the final authority for deadlines, balances, and service requests.

The published water-rate framework is described as Increasing five-tier block structure for single-family residential water, with a meter-size customer charge, tiered minimum charge, volume charge per 1,000 gallons, Community Benefit Charge, and possible drought-stage surcharge. The current FY2025–2026 schedule is effective November 1, 2025 and differentiates Residential Non-CAP and CAP rates; the water tiers are 0–2,000, 2,001–6,000, 6,001–11,000, 11,001–20,000, and over 20,000 gallons. Austin Water’s FY2026 materials also identify separate wastewater charges and a two-tier wastewater volume structure.. Bills are generated monthly; city of austin utilities bills the water and wastewater services as part of the monthly combined utility bill and offers monthly autopay., and a typical residential cost reference is The City’s FY2026 approved-budget materials use a typical residential profile of 5,800 gallons of water and 4,000 gallons of wastewater and project a combined Austin Water monthly bill of approximately $99.91, before account-specific drainage, solid-waste, street-service, drought, or other combined-utility charges. The amount varies with CAP eligibility, meter size, city rate schedule, and the customer’s wastewater average.. These descriptions are useful planning benchmarks; actual charges can change with meter size, usage, sewer averaging, local taxes, drought stages, or account-specific fees.

Wastewater and sewer calculation

Austin calculates residential wastewater using potable-water meter readings during a three-month late-fall/winter averaging period, generally mid-November through mid-March, to exclude irrigation, pool filling, car washing, and other seasonal outdoor use that does not become sanitary sewage. The wastewater volume established by that average is fixed for the billing period and does not increase merely because summer water use rises; the bill uses the wastewater average or current monthly consumption, whichever is lower. A residential account needs at least 60 consecutive days of water use and at least 100 gallons per billing period; if two or more averaging-period bills show less than 100 gallons, Austin applies a 5,000-gallon default average. The customer pays a wastewater customer charge plus the applicable two-tier wastewater volume charge and community-benefit charges.

Meter and infrastructure notes

Austin Water’s My ATX Water program replaced more than 250,000 analog meters with digital meters connected to a secure wireless network. The meters transmit daily usage data, normally available in the portal within 24 hours, and support near-real-time usage, high-use notifications, budgeting alerts, and leak alerts. The meters are battery-powered with an expected ten-year battery life. Customers who opt out of wireless transmission retain a digital display but pay a $10 monthly manual-reading charge and lose daily data and automated alerts; service shutoff remains manual rather than remote.