City of San Bernardino Municipal Water Department (SBMWD)
City of San Bernardino and nearby SBMWD service-area communities, including the documented outside-city Loma Linda wastewater-treatment customer class
Population reference
More than 200,000 people across an approximately 45-square-mile water service area, with more than 45,000 water service connections and over 700 miles of water mains. Recent City planning material identifies approximately 210,830 people served by SBMWD in the 2020 service-population analysis.
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
- Monthly. SBMWD’s delinquency page states that all accounts are billed in monthly intervals, and the department’s automatic-payment program deducts the monthly bill approximately 19 days after the billing date. Meter readings were historically performed monthly by department meter readers; the department is upgrading to AMI while continuing monthly billing.
- Rate structure
- Monthly fixed meter charge plus increasing-block residential commodity tiers and customer-class uniform charges. The published schedule effective July 1, 2025 listed a 5/8-inch fixed meter charge of $23.97, then single-family residential commodity rates of $1.60 per HCF for 0–13 HCF, $2.16 for 14–23 HCF, and $2.73 above 23 HCF. The 2026 Water Board action took effect July 1, 2026 and superseded the earlier schedule; the structure remains fixed charge plus tiered HCF pricing, with drought-stage surcharges that must be separately adopted by the Water Board. At the 2026 rate-change example, a 5/8-inch single-family service using 15 HCF has a combined water-and-sewer bill of $109.52.
- Residential cost reference
- Approximately $97–$104 per month for a typical 5/8-inch single-family account using roughly 5,000–7,000 gallons, as an estimate derived from the department’s fixed meter charge, low residential HCF tiers, and the July 1, 2026 rate-change benchmark. SBMWD’s official 2026 example is more precise for 15 HCF (about 11,220 gallons): $109.52 combined water and sewer per month. Actual 5,000–7,000-gallon totals depend on the applicable 2026 rate table, service class, sewer location, and whether the account is inside San Bernardino or in the outside-city Loma Linda treatment class.
- Wastewater and sewer calculation
- SBMWD charges a fixed monthly wastewater service charge by customer class and location. For the July 1, 2025 schedule, an inside-city single-family account had a $52.90 monthly wastewater charge; an outside-city Loma Linda single-family account had a $29.39 treatment-only charge. A separate wastewater commodity charge is billed per HCF of water use for multi-family accounts with four or more units, mobile-home parks, and non-residential classes, with low-, medium-, or high-strength rates. Single-family residential domestic-strength wastewater commodity entries are listed as not publicly documented, so the ordinary residential bill is principally a fixed sewer charge plus the water meter and commodity charges; no winter sewer-average formula is published for that class.
- Meter reading
- SBMWD historically read meters monthly with department meter readers and continues monthly billing. It is upgrading meters to Advanced Metering Infrastructure using smart meters and a cellular communications network that sends continuous consumption data, enabling earlier unusual-use alerts by email, text, or phone. The AMI meters do not remotely shut off or restrict water. SBMWD says the customer portal for daily-use monitoring and alerts is being launched, and customers should understand that AMI identifies usage patterns rather than the leak location. The 2023 Water Board procurement records identify Badger meters and Itron AMI communications/network hardware and head-end software, with larger meters in some cases using ultrasonic technology.
- New-account deposit
- SBMWD requires account deposits when applicable, but Customer Service must quote the amount for the applicant and account. Rule and Regulation No. 8 states that a residential single-family guaranty, when required to initiate service or re-establish credit, may be equal to three times the estimated average monthly bill inclusive of all services. If water was disconnected for delinquency, the current Delinquency Process page requires a security deposit equal to four times the average monthly bill in addition to the past-due balance and service charge. Deposits are credited to the account after 24 consecutive months of good payment history while the account remains open, or applied to the balance when the account terminates.
- Activation or transfer fee
- A non-refundable $40 account-establishment fee is applied to the first bill for a customer requesting service through an existing connection under Rule and Regulation No. 10. The public start-service page requires valid photo identification; tenants need owner authorization; owners must provide a final settlement statement or recorded grant deed; and deposits are quoted by Customer Service. Applications received on a business day are connected the next business day under Rule 10, while a same-business-day after-hours service connection is listed at $150. Stop requests require at least two business days, and accounts are not automatically closed, transferred, or reopened without the account holder contacting Customer Service.
Context, not a score
How documentation coverage compares
This profile
100%
overview fields with research notes
California
67%
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 San Bernardino Municipal Water Department (SBMWD) 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.