Honolulu Board of Water Supply (BWS), City and County of Honolulu
Oʻahu, including Honolulu and the Board of Water Supply service communities
Population reference
More than 600,000 people and approximately 231,000 homes and businesses across the metro Oʻahu service area.
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. BWS's rate schedule assesses a customer charge each month, charges water quantity by monthly usage, and its public financial materials state that meters are read and bills rendered monthly.
- Rate structure
- Increasing block residential rates billed per 1,000 gallons, with a meter-size customer charge. Under the schedule effective July 1, 2026, a 5/8- or 3/4-inch meter has a $17.30 monthly charge; single-family water is $4.92 per 1,000 gallons for the first 2,000 gallons, $7.51 for 2,001-6,000 gallons, $8.98 for 6,001-30,000 gallons, and $15.06 above 30,000 gallons. Multi-unit residential has a separate four-tier schedule. Non-residential water is a uniform $7.54/1,000 gallons effective July 1, 2026. Usage is rounded down to the nearest 1,000 gallons.
- Residential cost reference
- Approximately $50 for 5,000 gallons of BWS single-family water alone under the July 1, 2026 schedule: $17.30 customer charge plus 2,000 gallons at $4.92 and 3,000 gallons at $7.51, or about $49.67 before sewer. For a property billed by the City and County of Honolulu sewer system, a rough combined water-and-sewer estimate is about $145 at that usage: July 2026 sewer base charge $48.27 plus 80% of 5,000 gallons at $11.83/1,000 gallons, or about $95.59 sewer. Actual totals vary with metered gallons, sewer eligibility, irrigation submetering, and billing period.
- Wastewater and sewer calculation
- Honolulu's Department of Environmental Services administers sewer charges while BWS commonly bills and collects the combined account. For a single-family or duplex dwelling served by city water, the July 1, 2026 sewer schedule sets a $48.27 monthly base charge plus $11.83 per 1,000 gallons of metered water, with the metered water reduced by a 20% water-irrigation factor. A residential customer with a separately maintained submeter for non-sewer water may avoid that 20% reduction treatment for the submetered non-sewer volume. Sewer rates are set by the City, not BWS.
- Meter reading
- BWS bills monthly and uses automated meter reading (AMR) equipment with radio transponders for drive-by reads, supplemented by manual or estimated readings when a meter cannot be read. A 2024 BWS resolution reports more than 19,000 AMR equipment replacements since 2021, a drive-by read rate improved from 84% to 97%, and an estimated-bill rate below 2%. BWS materials describe radio pickup of AMR readings rather than full hourly customer-facing AMI; the system is being modernized through electronic-register and transponder replacement.
- New-account deposit
- BWS Rules and Regulations require compliance with application conditions including collection of a security deposit when applicable, and BWS may refuse or condition service where there is outstanding debt, unauthorized use, meter tampering, or fraud risk. The public pages reviewed do not display a standard residential dollar amount, credit-check waiver, or refund schedule for ordinary new accounts; customers should request the current deposit calculation from BWS Customer Care before opening service.
- Activation or transfer fee
- BWS's current public rate schedule does not state a standard residential account-activation or name-transfer dollar fee. The rate schedule says activation requires a written request submitted at least 48 hours before service is required unless waived by the Manager and Chief Engineer. Customers should submit start/stop or transfer requests through the BWS online account and confirm any property-specific service-connection charge with BWS.
Context, not a score
How documentation coverage compares
This profile
100%
overview fields with research notes
Hawaii
36%
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
- Honolulu Board of Water Supply (BWS), City and County of Honolulu 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.