City of Tuscaloosa Water & Sewer Department
Tuscaloosa and the City of Tuscaloosa Water & Sewer Department service area
Population reference
The municipal water and sewer department serves the City of Tuscaloosa and its connected customers; the city’s population and university-centered service base place this system well above the 3,300-person threshold. The reviewed 2026 public pages do not provide a separate current population-served or connection-count figure.
Billing detail
Broad public detail found
Official destination
Open provider website ↗Provider-specific findings
Billing and account research from public material
Provider-specific research notes are displayed separately from fields that contain only an unavailable-information marker. Read qualifiers in each note and verify current account terms with the provider.
- Billing frequency
- Approximately every 30 days. If a meter reading cannot be obtained, the city issues an estimated-consumption bill; failure to receive the bill does not remove the obligation to pay by the delinquent date.
- Rate structure
- Monthly administration charge by meter size plus consumption billed in units of 100 cubic feet (10 cubic feet equals 74.8 gallons). The FY 2026 schedule effective October 1, 2025 lists a 5/8-inch or 3/4-inch minimum water administration charge of $14.78 and a residential metered-water charge of $4.450 per 100 cubic feet; the schedule separately lists sewer at $3.609 per 100 cubic feet and applies a residential sewer maximum of 2,500 cubic feet. A 4% tax applies to water and rural-water-authority administration charges.
- Residential cost reference
- Using the FY 2026 5/8-inch or 3/4-inch minimums and 5,000 gallons (about 6.68 units of 100 cubic feet), the illustrative water charge is approximately $14.78 + (6.68 × $4.450) = $44.53, and the sewer component is approximately $17.14 + (6.68 × $3.609) = $41.25 before the residential sewer cap and any tax or account-specific adjustments. The minimum combined water/sewer administration charges alone are $31.92 for the smallest listed meter; customers should verify the final calculation against the current rate sheet and bill.
- Wastewater and sewer calculation
- The City states that sewer charges are based on the customer’s water consumption. The FY 2026 schedule bills metered sewer per 100 cubic feet at $3.609 and limits residential billed sewer consumption to a maximum of 2,500 cubic feet; the same schedule lists a $17.14 minimum sewer administration charge for the smallest meter. The sewer charge is therefore tied to metered intake rather than a flat percentage of the water bill.
- Meter reading
- The normal billing cycle is approximately 30 days, and the city issues an estimated bill when a reading cannot be obtained. The reviewed official pages do not identify an AMI/AMR vendor, hourly transmission interval, or specific route schedule. The supported description is periodic meter reading with estimation fallback and online account-usage history through Paymentus.
- New-account deposit
- The FY 2026 schedule lists residential account deposits of $80 for a 5/8-inch meter, $100 for a 3/4-inch meter, and $120 for 1-inch-and-over meters. The reviewed public new-account material does not state a credit-check waiver or a standard on-time-payment return period for ordinary residential water deposits; special hydrant-meter applications separately require a $50 deposit, and floating hydrant meters require an additional $1,500 advance deposit.
- Activation or transfer fee
- Tuscaloosa provides official new-account and transfer-service forms, but the reviewed 2026 public pages do not state a universal residential activation or transfer fee. Meter-set and service-installation charges apply to commercial, multifamily, irrigation, and hydrant-meter work under the rate schedule; a standard single-family account should confirm any current fee and required deposit with the Water Business Office before activation.
Context, not a score
How documentation coverage compares
This profile
100%
overview fields with research notes
Alabama
35%
records with any overview detail
National index
50%
records with any overview detail
Coverage measures what this directory documented. It does not measure service quality, affordability, or regulatory compliance.
Research record
Broad public detail found
7 of 7 fields in this section contain provider-specific public detail in dataset August 1, 2026.
Documented
100%
Primary verification routes
- City of Tuscaloosa Water & Sewer Department public website ↗
Provider-controlled destination used to confirm current customer instructions.
- EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System ↗
Federal background on public water-system records and their limitations.