Who pays for the pipes under the streets?
Short answer: Municipalities need to invest around 37 billion kronor a year in water and sewerage until 2040, according to Svenskt Vatten. In 2025 they invested just over 31 billion, twice as much as in 2019. The pipes are being replaced at a rate of about half a percent a year, so it would take around 200 years to renew the whole network. The charge is paid by those who are connected, and a house pays on average 12,537 kronor a year in 2026, from just over 5,000 kronor in Fagersta to almost 26,000 in Trosa. Over a million people have their own well, and around 700,000 houses have their own sewage system.
More on the site: Municipal finances shows what municipalities spend their money on, Climate and energy emissions and electricity per municipality, Sweden's environmental impact what we consume, and Infrastructure the railways and roads, which also have a maintenance backlog.
The pipes are old and replaced slowly.
- Need per year until 2040
- SEK 37 bn
- Svenskt Vatten,
- Invested 2025
- SEK 31 bn
- Svenskt Vatten,
- Water mains renewed 2024
- 0.48 %
- Svenskt Vatten,
- Desired renewal per year
- 0.7 %
- Svenskt Vatten,
Sweden has just over 80,000 kilometres of municipal water mains and almost as many sewer pipes. In 2024, 402 kilometres of water main and 384 kilometres of sewer were replaced, about half a percent of the network. At that rate it takes around 200 years before every pipe has been replaced, our calculation, while Svenskt Vatten considers that the rate should be 0.6 to 0.7 percent.
The investment need of around 590 billion kronor until 2040 covers the pipe network (about 17 billion a year), wastewater treatment plants (11) and waterworks (9). Since water and sewerage are paid for with charges and not taxes, Svenskt Vatten estimates that charges would need to rise by almost 80 percent until 2040, all else being equal.
Sources: Svenskt Vatten, Investeringsrapporten 2026, and Resultatrapport för VASS Drift 2024. Kronor in current prices.
What water and sewerage cost in your municipality.
The Nils Holgersson report compares each year what the same block of flats would pay in every municipality, per square metre of living space. In the middle municipality water and sewerage cost 107 kronor per square metre a year in 2025, almost three times as much as in 1996. The charge may only cover what water and sewerage cost, so the differences between municipalities mostly reflect how long the pipes are per resident and how much is being rebuilt.
Municipalities are building more than before.
Municipal investment in water and sewerage has risen from around 660 kronor per resident in 2017 to over 1,100 kronor in 2025, in current prices. Municipalities with many holiday homes and long pipes, such as Härjedalen, Åre and Tanum, are highest per resident. The municipalities' finances as a whole are on Municipal finances.
Nine in ten get their water from the municipality.
Around 88 percent of the population has municipal water. Over a million permanent residents have their own well or share one with neighbours, and the owner is responsible for that well. Nearly half of drinking water comes from groundwater, and the rest is taken from lakes and rivers.
From 1 January 2026 new limits apply to PFAS in drinking water: 4 nanograms per litre for the sum of four substances and 100 nanograms for the sum of 21 substances. Previously there was only a level at which the waterworks had to act.
The largest outbreak of waterborne disease in Sweden in modern times came in Östersund in November 2010, when the parasite Cryptosporidium got into the water. About 45 percent of the roughly 60,000 residents fell ill, and the municipality asked residents to boil their water for several months.
There is no open national record of how many boil-water advisories municipalities issue, so they cannot be compared here.
Sources: Swedish Food Agency, Dricksvatten från små dricksvattenanläggningar för privat bruk, and LIVSFS 2022:12; SGU, Water; Widerström et al., Large Outbreak of Cryptosporidium hominis Infection Transmitted through the Public Water Supply, Sweden, Emerging Infectious Diseases 2014.
Groundwater status municipality by municipality.
The Water Authorities assess whether each groundwater body has good chemical and quantitative status. Nearly all do, but in some municipalities, lowest Borgholm, Trelleborg and Östhammar, a large share of the bodies do not have good status.
Groundwater is not always enough. In May 2025 SGU warned of a risk of water shortage on Gotland and in Kalmar, Blekinge and Skåne, and in August the same year levels were still unusually low in southern Sweden. In April 2026 a new warning came for Skåne. There is no national record of municipal watering bans.
Sources on the drought: SGU, Risk för vattenbrist (13 May 2025), Fortsatt låga grundvattennivåer (27 August 2025) and Meddelande om vattenbrist (21 April 2026). How the climate is changing is on Climate and energy.
Same water, different price.
The table shows the lowest and highest municipality, the middle of all municipalities, the country and the municipality you chose above, for the latest year with figures.
| Measure | Year | Lowest | Middle | Highest | Sweden | Chosen municipality |
|---|
Kronor in current prices. The middle is the median: half of municipalities are above and half below. Municipalities that run water and sewerage through their own company, such as Stockholm and Malmö, report no costs or investments here and are missing from those rows. The water charge has no national value in Kolada, so there the country is our calculation of the middle municipality.
700,000 houses with their own sewage system.
The Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management estimates about 700,000 small sewage systems with flush toilets, mostly in holiday homes and the countryside. Around a third of them have unknown treatment or no treatment after the septic tank. How much phosphorus they release into the sea is disputed and estimates differ, so no figure is given here. The municipal environment committee supervises them and can require the owner to rebuild.
Source: Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management, Avlopp, updated .
What the parties want.
In 2025 the Swedish National Audit Office reviewed the state's support to municipalities for water and sewerage (RiR 2025:2) and concluded that the efforts fall short in several respects and are not effective. The Riksdag's Committee on Civil Affairs dealt with the review in October 2025. Here is what the government and the parties that have tabled their own proposals in the Riksdag want, with a source for each.
- The government (M, KD and L): largely agrees with the National Audit Office's description of the problems and points to assignments already under way and to the water services preparedness inquiry (SOU 2024:82). Source: committee report 2025/26:CU3.
- Social Democrats: want to look into new forms of support and financing for water and sewerage preparedness. Source: motion 2025/26:635.
- Left Party: calls the government's passivity unacceptable and wants better supervision and follow-up of municipal water services plans. Source: committee report 2025/26:CU3.
- Green Party: wants the law to require plans for renewing the pipes, the charge to be allowed to go into funds for future investment, and national support to be investigated. Source: motion 2025/26:3368.
- Christian Democrats: want state credit guarantees and the state sharing interest rate risk with municipalities to be investigated. Source: motion 2025/26:1726.
The list only includes proposals we have been able to verify in Riksdag documents from the 2025/26 session. A party that is missing may have tabled other proposals. More about the parties on The parties.
Where the figures come from.
- Source: Kolada. The water charge per square metre from the Nils Holgersson report, municipal costs and investment in water and sewerage per resident, and the share of groundwater bodies with good status from the Water Authorities.
- Source: Svenskt Vatten, Investeringsrapporten 2026, Resultatrapport för VASS Drift 2024 and Taxestatistik 2026. Only national figures and the lowest and highest charges.
- Source: Swedish Food Agency, SGU and the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management for drinking water, groundwater and private sewage systems, and Riksdag documents for the politics. The links are under each section.
- Our own processing: how long it takes to replace the whole pipe network, as 100 divided by the share renewed per year. The national water charge as the middle municipality, since Kolada has no national value. Costs and investment under 100 kronor per resident are removed, since they are residuals in municipalities that run water and sewerage through a company.
- Not included: how many boil-water advisories and watering bans municipalities issue. There is no open national record.
Nothing is estimated by us except what is listed under own processing. The figures come from Kolada. The municipalities' full finances are on Municipal finances, what we emit and consume on Sweden's environmental impact and roads and railways on Infrastructure.