Setting Up Water Service in Japan
Setting up water service in Japan means filing a start-of-use notice with the city water bureau for your new address, not shopping for a provider.1 Water is often already flowing when you arrive, so the filing is what puts the account and the bills in your name.
Procedures, fees, and requirements can change. Confirm current details at the water bureau serving your new address, such as the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Waterworks or the Osaka City Waterworks Bureau.
Overview
Japan's tap water comes from the 水道局 (suidokyoku, "water bureau"), the municipal or prefectural supplier assigned to your address.12 There is no deregulated market and no choice of company, which makes water simpler than electricity or gas but also means every procedure runs through one local office.
This guide applies to all new tenants renting standard housing and contracting directly with the bureau. If your building holds a bulk water contract with the bureau, you cannot contract individually and your water cost arrives through rent or management fees instead.3
How City Water Works: One Supplier, No Choice
Your address decides your supplier. Each municipality operates its own water business, and large cities run a dedicated bureau with customer and call centers, while smaller municipalities may handle applications at the municipal office counter.1 Tokyo's bureau publishes separate rate tables for the 23 wards and the Tama area, which shows how local the system is even inside one metropolis.4
Sewerage can sit with a different office, such as Osaka's Public Works Bureau or Tokyo's Bureau of Sewerage, but the sewerage charge is billed together with the water charge on one slip.25 Osaka City also notes its tap water can be drunk as is.2
Who supplies your water
Find the bureau that serves your new address before anything else, usually through your city or ward website.1 The bureau name, application channels, and payment options on that page are the ones that govern your move, not the examples from any other city in this guide.
Starting Service at Move-In
In most cases the water is already on because the supply line stays active between tenants.1 Your job is the paperwork: a start-of-use notice that registers you as the customer from your move-in date. The flow looks like this:
The pre-active pattern and the start-of-use notification
File the start-of-use notice even when water flows on arrival. Without it there is no account in your name, and the bureau may stop the supply to an unregistered tap.1 Tokyo asks for notice 3 to 4 days before starting or stopping use, and also accepts applications through the Tokyo Water App.6
Tokyo's English-mode app handles start and cancel applications, and new starters do not need the 10-digit customer number that existing customers use.7 No on-site visit is normally needed for starting or stopping service.1
Filing both dates for the same moving day avoids paying base charges at two addresses at once. Moves within one bureau area can usually file the stop and the start together.1
What you need and where to file
Channels differ by bureau: phone, fax, mailed postcard, online form or app, and the office counter are all common, but small bureaus may not offer online filing.13 Osaka accepts start, stop, and combined stop-plus-start filings through its customer web portal around the clock, alongside phone and fax.2
Have these ready: your name, contact details, the new address, the start date, and a payment method. The customer or faucet number helps if you know it but is not required for a new start.17 Tokyo's customer center line is 0570-091-100, open 8:30 to 20:00 except Sundays and holidays.8 Osaka's customer center is 06-6458-1132, open weekdays 8:00 to 20:00 and Saturdays 9:00 to 17:00, with English-speaking operators available.2
Closing or transferring at move-out
Notify the bureau to stop service at the old address when you leave, and file the start at the new one in the same step when both sit in one bureau area.1 Tokyo prorates mid-month starts and stops by day for the water charge, while the sewerage charge uses a half-month rule at 15 days.6 Repeated nonpayment after reminders leads to shutoff as a rule, so keep the forwarding address current until the final bill clears.6
Billing and Payment
Water billing runs on a slower rhythm than electricity or gas. Expect one combined water-plus-sewerage slip rather than two separate bills.59
Meter reading and the two-month cycle
Ordinary Tokyo households are meter-read every 2 months, and the bill is issued each time the meter is read.6 Many other municipalities follow the same bimonthly pattern, so the slip in your mailbox covers 2 months of use and you divide by two for the monthly figure.10 Tokyo assigns each customer a fixed monthly reference date shown on the reading slip.6
How to pay: auto-pay, credit card, konbini
Tokyo accepts account transfer, continuous credit card payment, Tokyo Water App payment, and the paper payment slip.11 The slip pays at financial institutions, Japan Post Bank and post offices, major konbini chains including Seven-Eleven, FamilyMart, Lawson, Ministop, and Daily Yamazaki, and through smartphone payment apps such as PayPay, au PAY, d払い, Rakuten Pay, FamiPay, and AEON Pay.5
Osaka accepts account transfer, continuous credit card payment, portal electronic payment (PayPay only), and the payment slip, which pays by smartphone payment, konbini, financial institutions, Japan Post Bank, and post offices.9
Osaka notes about 1 to 2 months for bank-transfer setup by mail and about 1 month for credit card setup, and Tokyo notes a similar month-long lead time for credit cards.9 Pay the early slips at the konbini until the switch completes. Tokyo also discounts account-transfer payers by ¥50 per month (tax-excluded), a discount credit card payers do not receive (as of 2026-09; confirm current figures with the Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Waterworks).1211
Water Costs
Bills combine a fixed basic charge with a tiered volumetric charge, so small households mostly pay the basic charge plus a little.4 National survey data grounds the ranges below, and your bureau's published rate table governs the exact total.
| Household | National average (water plus sewerage, per month) | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single person | ¥2,282 | 20241310 | Family Income and Expenditure Survey |
| Two persons | ¥4,248 | 202410 | Family Income and Expenditure Survey |
| Three persons | ¥5,358 | 202410 | Family Income and Expenditure Survey |
| Four persons | ¥6,026 | 202410 | Family Income and Expenditure Survey |
| Households of two or more (all) | ¥5,092 | 202414 | Statistics Bureau summary |
Typical monthly ranges by household size
A single person or couple in a 1K to 2LDK unit typically lands around ¥1,500 to ¥4,000 per month, which tracks the national single and two-person averages above (as of 2024; confirm current figures with the Statistics Bureau's Family Income and Expenditure Survey).1310 Family-size households and detached houses with gardens run higher, since usage climbs into the steeper volumetric tiers.10 (as of 2024).
As a worked example, Tokyo's 23-ward general-use rate starts from a ¥860 monthly basic charge on a 13mm meter, with the first 5 cubic meters free, ¥22 per cubic meter for 6 to 10, ¥128 for 11 to 20, and higher tiers above that (as of 2026-09).4 Your bureau's tiers will differ, but the shape, cheap first block and rising tiers, is the same idea everywhere.
Hot Water in Your Unit
Cold water from the bureau is only half the story. Heat is a separate question with its own equipment and its own bill.
Central supply vs unit-level heater
Most units heat water with an in-unit gas or electric heater, and that energy cost appears on the gas or electricity bill rather than the water bill.15 Some apartment buildings instead use central hot-water supply, where a building-level boiler makes hot water for every unit and fuel plus maintenance costs are shared across households.15
Central billing varies by property: some buildings fold it into management fees as a flat charge regardless of individual use, while others meter it.15 Check the lease and the management rules before signing so the hot-water cost does not arrive as a surprise. Residents of mansions with a bulk bureau contract should check the same documents, since individual bureau contracts are not available there at all.3
Good to know
Water left running with no filing can be shut off
Flowing taps do not mean an active account. The start-of-use filing is what creates the customer record, and an unregistered tap can be stopped even mid-tenancy.1 File promptly after getting the keys, even if everything already works.
File at least a week before move-in during peak season
Tokyo's official lead time is 3 to 4 days, but relocation guides recommend at least a full week, and the March to April moving peak congests every bureau's reception.61 Earlier filing costs nothing and removes one moving-day failure mode.
The bill you receive covers two months
A ¥4,000 to ¥5,000 slip for a single-person household looks alarming until you halve it: that is roughly two months at the national single-person average (as of 2024).10 Budget monthly, pay bimonthly, and compare slips against halved figures rather than raw totals.
Sewerage charges ride on the same bill
The number on the slip is always water plus sewerage combined, in both Tokyo and Osaka.59 Usage disputes or high-bill investigations therefore need both halves of the calculation, not the water tiers alone.
Your bureau's channels differ; Tokyo is not the template
Online filing, English support, accepted payment apps, and even the meter cadence vary bureau by bureau.12 Treat Tokyo and Osaka details in this guide as worked examples and confirm each step with the bureau serving the new address.
See also
- How Renting Works in Japan
- Move-Out Procedures: Closing Utility Accounts
- Electricity in Japan: TEPCO and New-Power Retailers
- Gas in Japan: City Gas vs. Propane and the Safety Inspection
- Internet and TV: Utility Setup Overview