Is NYC Tap Water Safe to Drink? (2026 Water Quality Review)

The water New York City delivers to your street carries no lead, and by the city's own 2025 report it met every drinking water standard. Whether the glass from your faucet is just as clean depends on your building: its service line, its pipes and solder, its faucets, and in a tall building its rooftop tank. The city's own testing shows both halves, and the city will mail you a free lead test for your home.

Everything below comes from the city's newest Drinking Water Supply and Quality Report, which covers 2025, the city's lead and water tank pages, and the EPA's record for the New York City system.

What to do in your building

Whether you rent or own, and how old the building is, decides what to do first. Find your row; each one links to the section that explains it.

Where NYC tap water comes from

New York City's water comes from 19 reservoirs and three lakes upstate, as far as 125 miles north of the city. In 2025 the Catskill and Delaware systems supplied 91.3 percent of it and the Croton system 8.7 percent.

The Catskill and Delaware water is not filtered. The city treats it with chlorine, then with ultraviolet light at a plant in Westchester County that can disinfect more than two billion gallons a day. The Croton water goes through a filtration plant in the Bronx. Before any of it reaches the pipes, the city adds food-grade phosphoric acid, which coats the inside of pipes so less lead dissolves from them, sodium hydroxide to raise the pH, and fluoride at 0.7 mg/L. The city is also running a corrosion control study to see whether its treatment should change to make the water less corrosive.

What the 2025 water report shows

No result in the city's 2025 report broke a legal limit, and the report says the water met every drinking water standard. These are the main numbers, from the report's own tables. ppb means parts per billion and ppm parts per million; the report writes them as µg/L and mg/L.

The EPA's record for the city's system shows one open item: a treatment-rule violation, open since February 2017, for Hillview Reservoir in Yonkers, the last stop before the water enters the city's pipes. The federal rule requires that reservoir to be covered. A 2019 consent decree with the United States and New York State sets the schedule for covering it, and the city says it met every commitment due in 2025. The EPA files it as a treatment requirement, the cover, not as a contaminant over its limit.

Lead gets in from your building's pipes

The city's 7,000 miles of water mains and tunnels carry no lead. Lead gets into NYC tap water from a building's own plumbing. Everything from the street to your faucet belongs to the property owner, and that is where the city's rules have changed over the years.

The city's at-the-tap testing picks the homes most likely to show lead: ones with lead service lines, lead fixtures or lead solder. Those are the 326 homes in the chart at the top of this page. The EPA's health goal for lead is zero, not 15 ppb. Lead levels also change over time, and the city warns that a test showing no lead does not rule out lead later.

The city's service line map shows what its records say your line is made of, mostly from old plumbing records. If the records say lead, galvanized steel or unknown, the city has to notify the owner every year. In 2025 it expanded a free program that replaces lead and galvanized lines at eligible properties in the Bronx and Queens; only owners who get a letter from the city qualify, and the city puts the cost of replacing a line yourself at more than $8,000.

A caller in September got a notice in the mail that her house had a lead pipe. Her test showed no lead, and she has a baby. What I told her: "anytime you're gonna use the water out of the faucet to cook with, just run the water for at least a minute to clear it out." The city's own steps, from its lead page and its 2025 report:

• Run the cold tap for 30 seconds to 2 minutes, until it turns colder, when the water has sat for several hours.
• Use only cold water for drinking, cooking and baby formula. Hot tap water is more likely to contain lead.
• Clean the faucet screen (the aerator) regularly. Small lead particles collect there.
• Boiling does not remove lead. It can concentrate it.
• Use a filter certified by NSF or UL for lead removal.
• Have a licensed plumber replace a lead service line or lead fixtures. That is the surest fix.

How to test your own tap

Every home's plumbing is different, so the way to know what yours adds is a sample from your own tap. The city's free kit answers the lead question. Our city water test reports lead plus 46 other results, including copper and the corrosion numbers.

If lead is your only question, start with the city's kit. It costs nothing, and it is the test I would order first for an apartment. Ours is a mail-in test run by an independent, ISO/IEC 17025-accredited lab in SimpleLab's network. What it adds is copper and the corrosion numbers, which show how hard the water is on your pipes. The two city tests my customers in New York City have sent back so far both read soft, about 1.3 grains per gallon, and both carried far more copper than the city's own street samples; the city's report names household plumbing as where copper comes from. People on city water tell me they are not sure which test to buy; if you get a water bill, you are on city water, so it is the city water test, not the well test.

Got your lead or lab results back?

Text me the numbers from your report

Send a photo of the city's letter or the lab report, and I'll tell you what the numbers mean for your building and whether anything is worth buying.

Text Aidan443-277-2204 Call800-460-5810Aidan

Call 800-460-5810 or text Aidan at 443-277-2204, 8 AM to 5 PM Eastern, seven days a week.

Why NYC tap water tastes like chlorine

Yes, NYC tap water has chlorine in it: 0.6 mg/L on average in 2025, well under the 4 mg/L limit. The city keeps it in the pipes on purpose, to stop germs from growing on the long trip from the reservoirs to your faucet.

The city says chlorine in these amounts is not hazardous, and that the smell can be stronger in warm weather. Its own fix for the taste: leave a glass or pitcher of tap water in the refrigerator overnight, or pour the water from one container to another about 10 times.

When chlorine meets the natural organic matter in reservoir water, it forms byproducts: trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids, the two byproduct rows in the report table. NYC's are under the legal limits and not zero. When I moved into my house, you could smell the chlorine coming off the bathtub before we put the filtration system in. I tell callers on city water that carbon is worth it for the chlorine and the byproducts. That is a preference, not an emergency: the city's numbers are under every limit.

Rooftop water tanks in tall buildings

In buildings taller than six floors, pumps lift the water to a rooftop tank, where it is stored until someone opens a tap. The city's Health Code makes the owner have each drinking water tank inspected at least once a year, by a licensed master plumber or someone working under one, or a licensed engineer or architect, and file the results with the Health Department by January 15.

The owner has to post a sign telling residents how to see the results and has to keep them for five years. You can also look up your building's tank results by address on the Health Department's site. The department notes that it does not verify what the inspectors report.

Brown or rusty water that keeps coming back usually means corroding pipes inside the building or a rusting water heater. The city says not to drink water that is clearly discolored, to run the cold tap for 2 to 3 minutes if it has not been used for a while, and to report it to 311. Milky water that clears in a glass is air trapped in the water, and the city says it is not a health concern.

Which filter fits NYC water

Pick a filter for what your own tap shows, not for the city's averages. In NYC there are two reasons to filter, and two things the water does not need.

Lead at the tap you drink from. The city's advice is a filter certified by NSF or UL for lead removal: a pitcher, a faucet filter or one installed under the sink. Our under-sink reverse osmosis systems reduce lead. They are not certified for lead removal. If you want the certified filter the city describes, buy one whose listing names its NSF or UL lead certification. If you use one of ours, test the water from the reverse osmosis faucet after it goes in. A filter only treats the tap it is on, and it needs its cartridges changed on schedule. Replacing the lead line is still the fix that ends the problem.

Chlorine taste. Carbon removes it. For one tap, a carbon pitcher or faucet filter does the job. For every tap in a house or building you own, a whole-house carbon tank goes where the water comes in: see our whole-house water filtration systems. We recommend a licensed plumber for that install, and I support your plumber by phone.

What NYC water does not need. A water softener: the water averaged about 2 grains per gallon in 2025, and the city says even the areas that get some Croton water reach only about 7. A PFAS system: the 2025 report found PFOA once, at 2.7 parts per trillion, and no PFOS. For how each kind of city water treatment works, see my city water treatment guide.

Frequently asked questions