Help Paying Your Water Bill 2026: What Exists After LIHWAP

If you are looking for the government program that pays water bills, the honest answer is that the one you have read about is closed, and the pages telling you where to go instead are a mix of good advice, one route that cannot legally help you, and at least one link that does not load. This guide sorts them, using the federal and state pages themselves rather than anyone’s summary of them.

The Short Answer

Question	The answer	Where it comes from
Is LIHWAP still open?	No. “Funding is no longer available for LIHWAP. Households cannot receive LIHWAP benefits at this time.”	acf.gov LIHWAP page, current as of August 5, 2026
When did it end?	March 31, 2024	California CSD — HHS’s page does not say
What did it pay?	$448 average benefit; 1.5M households in FY23	LIHWAP Fact Sheet
Can LIHEAP pay a water bill?	No. “Home energy” means “a source of heating or cooling in residential dwellings”	42 U.S.C. 8622(6)
What does the federal government tell you to do now?	Ask your own water utility about its assistance program and its payment plans	HHS Water Assistance Resources (PDF); EPA consumer page
Is there a replacement federal benefit?	No. EPA has recommended Congress create one	EPA Report to Congress, Dec 2024
How many households are affected?	12.1 to 19.2 million lack affordable water service	EPA Report to Congress
Does a state program exist?	In some states, yes — Michigan pays up to $3,000 per fiscal year through Community Action Agencies	michigan.gov MDHHS

What Actually Happened to LIHWAP

LIHWAP was never a permanent program, and the two laws that created it say so. HHS’s own fact sheet names them: Section 533 of Division H of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (Public Law 116-260) and Section 2912 of the American Rescue Plan Act (Public Law 117-2). The money was a single appropriation — $1.138 billion in FY 2021, made up of $500 million from the American Rescue Plan and $638 million from the appropriations act. There was no annual renewal to lapse; the money simply ran out.

What it did while it existed, from the same fact sheet’s FY23 figures:

FY23 LIHWAP	Figure
Funding released	$1.1 billion
Households served	1.5 million
Individuals served	3.8 million
Average benefit amount	$448
Disconnections prevented	924,000
Water services restored	102,000
Reductions of current water bills	1.1 million
Grant recipients	152 (50 states including DC, 5 territories, 97 Tribes and Tribal consortiums)
Water vendor partnerships formed	17,000

Note the number of grant recipients: 152 separate programs, each writing its own rules. That is why LIHWAP looked completely different in two neighboring states, and it is also why the guidance you find online about “the water program” contradicts itself.

The end date is the piece HHS leaves out. The federal page, marked current as of August 5, 2026, tells you funding is gone but not when it went. The date is on a state page. California’s Department of Community Services and Development — the agency HHS designated to run LIHWAP in California — writes: “LIHWAP was established by Congress in December 2020, and the program sunset on March 31, 2024.” EPA’s Report to Congress confirms the fact without the date: “LIHWAP was established as a temporary program and has since ended.”

The Route That Cannot Legally Help You

Here is the thing you will not find on other water-bill pages, and it matters because HHS itself points you toward it.

On the closed LIHWAP page, under the advice for households, HHS writes: “Energy assistance may be available to you through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). To find out more, visit energyhelp.us.” That is sensible general advice — LIHEAP is real and open, and paying your heating bill frees money for other bills. But if you arrive there hoping LIHEAP will settle a water arrears balance, the statute closes the door before you get to the application.

42 U.S.C. 8622(6) defines the only thing LIHEAP is allowed to pay for:

“The term ‘home energy’ means a source of heating or cooling in residential dwellings.”

That is the entire definition. None of the eleven definitions in the section mentions water, wastewater, sewer or a water utility. And 42 U.S.C. 8624(b) tracks it: the money is for “meeting their home energy costs,” for intervening “in energy crisis situations,” and for “low-cost residential weatherization and other cost-effective energy-related home repair.”

What this means in practice. Apply for LIHEAP if you have a heating or cooling bill — see our LIHEAP energy bill assistance guide and the LIHEAP income limits by state. Just do not apply to LIHEAP for the water bill and then wait. It is a real program with a real benefit and it is the wrong door for this particular bill.

One nuance worth knowing: LIHWAP’s own eligibility rule was modeled on LIHEAP’s. The fact sheet says each grant recipient set “a household income cutoff that is no more than the greater of 150% of the Federal Poverty Line (FPL) or 60% of State Median Income (SMI)” — the identical ceiling that 42 U.S.C. 8624(b)(2)(B) sets for LIHEAP. Same income test, different bill, separate money. That shared test is probably why the two programs get confused.

Four Routes You Get Sent To — Ranked by Whether They Work

Route	Does it work for a water bill?	What to know
Your own water utility	Yes — this is the route both HHS and EPA actually recommend	HHS publishes a one-page script for the call. EPA’s consumer page, updated May 22, 2026, gives the same answer. Start here
Your state’s water assistance program	Sometimes — it depends entirely on the state	Michigan runs one through September 30, 2031. Many states ran LIHWAP and stopped when the federal money did. Ask your state’s human services or community services agency
Community Action Agency / 211	Often — CAAs are the local intake office in several states	Michigan routes its whole program through CAAs. HHS also points here. But see the broken-link warning below
LIHEAP (energyhelp.us)	No, not for a water bill	”Home energy” is defined as heating or cooling only. Apply for your gas or electric bill instead

The broken link, two days running. HHS’s LIHWAP page sends readers who need a local agency to communityactionpartnership.com/find-a-cap — a private membership association’s site, not a .gov address. We could not connect to it on September 5 or September 6, 2026; a command-line request with a standard browser user agent failed to connect on port 443 after 21 seconds both days. We reported the same failure in our Community Action Agency guide yesterday. We cannot tell from here whether the site is down for everyone or unreachable only from our network, and we are not going to pretend otherwise — but do not treat it as your only route. Dial 211, or use the state CSBG directory route in that guide.

Start With Your Utility: The Federal Script

This is the part of HHS’s advice that is genuinely useful, and almost nobody reads it because it is buried in a PDF. The agency publishes a one-page Water Assistance Resources sheet with the exact two asks to make. Both asks are separate, and you should make both:

Ask 1 — Is there an assistance program?

• Call the utility’s office or customer service department.
• Tell the representative “that you are struggling to afford your bills and you would like to know if there is a bill assistance program that can help you.”
• If there is, the representative “will help you determine if you are qualified or refer you to someone who can help.”
• If the utility has no program, “you can ask if they know of any other programs in your area.”

Ask 2 — Is there a due date extension or a payment plan?

• Say that you are struggling to pay on time. HHS’s wording: “Tell them you would benefit from either a due date extension or from being put on a payment plan.”
• HHS’s note on how to do this well: “Ask the representative if you can quickly explain your situation… Due to possible high call volumes, make sure that you think about this ahead of time and can share this quickly. If helpful, write down what you plan to say before you call.”

HHS is blunt that neither ask is guaranteed: “your utility may not offer a bill assistance program, and the representative you speak with may not know of any programs that can help you.” If both come back empty, the sheet sends you to your city hall or county government, your Community Action Agency, 2-1-1 and Benefits.gov.

What Utility Programs Actually Look Like

The word “discount” hides an enormous range. These four are real programs we read on the operating government or utility’s own page, chosen to show how different the same idea can be. Yours will differ — this table is a map of the shapes, not a list you can apply to unless you live in one of these places.

Where	Program	What it does	Who qualifies
Michigan (statewide)	Water Assistance Program, MDHHS	Up to $3,000 per fiscal year for arrears, restoring service, preventing arrears, and affordability plans based on ability to pay. Funded through September 30, 2031 unless money runs out	Residential account on metered water or wastewater, under 200% of the Federal Poverty Level and/or actively receiving TANF, SNAP, State Emergency Relief, SSI, Weatherization or WIC. Administered through Community Action Agencies; if your county is not listed, call 2-1-1
Philadelphia	Tiered Assistance Program (TAP)	Your bill is based on income, not usage, so it stays the same each month. Eligible past-due debt starts falling off after your first TAP payment, and after 24 qualifying payments any remaining eligible debt — “including principal and penalties” — is forgiven	Tiered by household size and income. A special hardship route covers job loss, serious illness, a death in the household, domestic violence or a new household member. Seniors 65+ get a separate 25% discount with a $42,100 income limit in 2026. One universal application; (855) 827-8373
Washington, DC	DC Water CAP+, CAP1, CAP2, CAP3	Four tiers discounting a fixed block of water and sewer use each month, plus stormwater-fee reductions. Monthly discounts run about $131, $101, $67 and $18; DC Water summarizes the range as $218 to $1,572 a year. SPLASH adds up to $350 one-time emergency help	FY 2026 limits (Oct 1, 2025 – Sep 30, 2026) for a household of four: $39,642 (CAP+), $118,926 (CAP1), $131,100 (CAP2), $163,900 (CAP3). Income verified by DOEE, 202-350-9649
Seattle	Utility Discount Program	50% off water, sewer and garbage every month, and 60% off electricity, with no application deadline. The city lists average annual savings of $732	Income-qualified Seattle Public Utilities or Seattle City Light customers. The city states the program is open “regardless of… citizenship or immigration status” and that it does “not ask about citizenship or immigration status”

The thing to take from this table. Look at DC Water’s CAP3 line: $163,900 for a family of four. A water discount is not necessarily a poverty program — it is often pegged to local area income, and in an expensive metro that ceiling can be high. If you skipped applying because you assumed you earn too much, check your own utility’s published table before deciding. And look at Philadelphia’s TAP: an income-based bill plus debt forgiveness is a fundamentally different product from a one-time credit, and it is the shape EPA’s Report to Congress recommends federal policy move toward.

Before You Call: What to Have Ready

We are only listing what an official page actually names. Everything else is program-specific — ask when you call, because a second trip or a second upload is the most common reason an application stalls.

Named on an official page:

• Your water bill or account number. Every program above works from the account, and DC Water asks for “a recent DC Water bill.”
• Proof of income for every adult in the household. DC Water names “pay stub, Social Security statement, proof of termination or unemployment.” Seattle asks for income documents for all adults 18 and older.
• Government-issued photo ID. Named by DC Water; Seattle asks for photo ID for all adults 18+.
• Proof that you are responsible for the water charges if the bill is not in your name — DC Water asks for “proof of property ownership or a lease agreement indicating proof of responsibility for water charges.” Philadelphia asks for proof that you live in the home.
• Household composition — who lives with you, related or not. Seattle counts roommates; Philadelphia asks for information about each household member.
• If you are self-employed or have very little income, expect a declaration form — Seattle publishes separate self-employment and limited-income declarations.

Worth having, though no federal source requires it:

• The shutoff or past-due notice itself, with its date
• Award letters for any benefit that might make you categorically eligible — in Michigan, receiving TANF, SNAP, State Emergency Relief, SSI, Weatherization or WIC can qualify you on its own
• A written note of what you plan to say, per HHS’s own advice

If you already have a shutoff notice, say so on the first call. Seattle’s page puts it plainly: do not wait to apply, call right away to discuss options. Restoring service is usually a different and slower process than preventing a shutoff.

If You Are on a Well or a Septic System

There is no bill to discount, so the federal answer is repair money and technical help. HHS publishes a second Water Assistance Resources sheet for exactly this, and it is the most concrete federal document in this whole area:

• Rural Community Development (RCD) grant recipients — a federal grant program working through regional and Tribal organizations. Some recipients “run programs to improve private water wells and septic systems in rural communities” and “may be able to offer you an assessment of your well’s water or low interest loans for water well and septic system repairs.” The sheet lists them by region with phone numbers, including Rural Community Assistance Corporation (916-447-2854), Southeast Rural Community Assistance Project (540-345-1184), RCAP Solutions (1-800-488-1969), Communities Unlimited (479-443-2700), Great Lakes Community Action Partnership (1-800-775-9767), Midwest Assistance Program (660-562-2575), Inter Tribal Council of Arizona (602-258-4822) and United South and Eastern Tribes (615-872-7900).
• USDA Rural Development Single Family Housing Repair Loans & Grants — “provides funds to very low-income homeowners in eligible rural areas to repair, improve, or modernize their homes.” See our USDA Section 504 home repair grants guide.
• EPA’s list of state private well programs and EPA’s lists of septic funding sources and state septic program contacts.
• The Water Well Trust, which “offers low interest loans for low-income families that need safe drinking water or wastewater system improvements.”

How Big the Problem Is — and Why That Matters to Your Call

EPA had to measure this because Congress told it to. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Section 50108, codified at 42 U.S.C. 300j-19a, ordered a needs assessment; EPA delivered it in December 2024. The findings:

EPA finding (December 2024)	Figure
Households lacking affordable access to water services	12.1 to 19.2 million
Share of all U.S. households	9.2% to 14.6%
Annual unaffordable portion of water bills nationally	$5.1 to $8.8 billion
Households in the lowest income quintile with unaffordable bills (3% threshold)	more than 75%
Community water systems serving a disproportionate share of qualifying households	approximately 10,340
Households LIHWAP served, per EPA	1.7 million

Two practical consequences. First, if more than three quarters of the lowest-income quintile has an unaffordable water bill, your situation is ordinary, and utility customer-service staff deal with it constantly. Say the words. Second, EPA reports that LIHWAP reached 1.7 million households while 12 to 19 million have unaffordable bills — the federal program at its peak covered roughly a tenth of the need. Even when it existed it was not the main answer. Your utility’s own program was, and still is.

(A note on that 1.7 million: EPA’s report gives 1.7 million, while HHS’s LIHWAP page says the final report covered “over 1.5 million households” and the FY23 fact sheet says 1.5 million. We are quoting each agency’s own number rather than averaging them, and the gap is probably FY23 reporting versus the program’s full lifetime.)

Is a Federal Program Coming Back?

EPA’s Recommendation 1 to Congress is titled “Establish a Federal Water Assistance Program.” It prices the pilot already authorized by IIJA Section 50109 at $115 million to $185 million per year.

But read Section 50109 itself, which EPA reprints in Appendix B, and two facts change how you should treat the news:

1. The grants go to utilities, not to you. An “eligible entity” is “a municipality, Tribal government, or other entity that… owns or operates a community water system, treatment works, or municipal separate storm sewer system,” or a state with primary enforcement responsibility over a rural water provider. There is no household application in the section.
2. It is contingent. Subsection (b)(4): “The term of a grant awarded under the pilot program shall be subject to the availability of appropriations.” And the pilot is capped at 40 grants total.

The forms of help the pilot could fund are worth knowing anyway, because they describe what to ask your own utility for: “a lifeline rate,” “bill discounting,” “special hardship provisions,” “a percentage-of-income payment plan,” and debt relief. Philadelphia’s TAP is a percentage-of-income plan with debt relief attached. Those tools exist today at the local level; the federal question is only whether they get funded nationally.

Two Scam Warnings, One From HHS

HHS prints this on the LIHWAP page it has otherwise closed:

“The Low Income Household Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP) does not provide direct grants to individuals; LIHWAP does not charge a fee for receiving a benefit. If you receive a message offering you a LIHWAP grant or requesting a fee, please contact the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Fraud Hotline at 1-800-447-8477.”

The second warning is ours, and it follows from the first: a program that ended in March 2024 cannot pay you now. Any message, ad, text or social post offering you a LIHWAP benefit in 2026 is describing something that does not exist. Utility assistance is applied for through the utility or a designated public agency, and it is free to apply.

When a Government Page Still Says LIHWAP Is Open

This is the last thing to know, because it will happen to you.

On September 6, 2026 — two years and five months after California’s own administering agency says the program sunset — the California Public Utilities Commission’s consumer page for Water Company Assistance still describes LIHWAP in the present tense: “The California Department of Community Services and Development (CSD) is now enrolling water and wastewater systems in LIHWAP. LIHWAP is a customer-based program where qualified, low-income households can apply to their Local Service Provider (LSPs) to receive a one-time credit (up to $2,000).”

That page is on a .ca.gov domain, run by a state regulator, and it is out of date. The CSD page it links to says the opposite. We are not singling California out — we found it because we checked, and stale consumer pages are common everywhere.

The rule to apply: when a page tells you a benefit program is open, look for the administering agency’s own page, and look for a “current as of” or “last updated” date. For water assistance, the administering agency is HHS’s Office of Community Services federally, and your state’s designated agency locally. If those two say a program is closed, a third page saying otherwise is stale, not a discovery.

Other Doors for the Same Household Squeeze

If the water bill is one of several, these are separate pots of money with their own applications:

• Gas and electric. LIHEAP energy bill assistance, LIHEAP income limits by state, and when LIHEAP funds run out, nonprofit fuel funds and the Dollar Energy Fund.
• A house that wastes water and energy. Weatherization Assistance Program, applied for through your state.
• Home repairs, including plumbing. USDA Section 504 home repair grants and Rebuilding Together.
• The local office that may handle all of it. Community Action Agency near you.
• One call that covers everything. 211 — and it is the number Michigan’s own state page gives you when your county is not on its list.
• Rent, food and phone, if the squeeze is broader: Section 8, SNAP, Lifeline phone and internet discount.

How We Checked This

Every quotation and figure above was read from a primary source on September 6, 2026. Nothing here came from another site’s summary.

What we opened. HHS ACF’s LIHWAP program page (marked “Current as of: August 5, 2026”) for the closure notice, the referrals and the fraud warning; the LIHWAP Fact Sheet for the two authorizing laws, the $1.138 billion FY2021 appropriation, the 150% FPL / 60% SMI eligibility ceiling and all of the FY23 figures; both of HHS’s Water Assistance Resources PDFs — the bill-help sheet for the two-part utility script and the wells and septic sheet for the RCD, USDA and EPA routes; the LIHEAP page for the energyhelp.us referral; the statutory text of 42 U.S.C. 8622 and 8624 at Cornell’s Legal Information Institute; EPA’s Water Affordability Resources for Consumers page (marked “Last updated on May 22, 2026”) and the full 2.7 MB PDF of EPA’s Water Affordability Needs Assessment: Report to Congress (December 2024), including Appendix B’s reprint of IIJA Sections 50108 and 50109; California’s CSD LIHWAP page and the CPUC water assistance page; Michigan MDHHS’s Water Assistance Program page; the City of Philadelphia’s water bill customer assistance page and its Department of Revenue post of August 18, 2026; DC Water’s Customer Assistance Programs page including the full FY 2026 income table; and the City of Seattle’s Utility Discount Program page.

Four places where the common understanding and the actual rule diverge:

1. “LIHEAP can help with the water bill.” It cannot, as a water bill. 42 U.S.C. 8622(6) defines “home energy” as “a source of heating or cooling in residential dwellings,” and no definition in the section reaches water or wastewater. This is the single most consequential thing we found, because HHS’s own closed LIHWAP page steers water-bill searchers toward energyhelp.us — good advice for a different bill, a dead end for this one.
2. “HHS will tell you when LIHWAP ended.” It does not. The federal page states only that funding is gone. The date — March 31, 2024 — is published by California’s state administering agency, not by the federal one.
3. “Water discounts are for very low incomes.” Sometimes; often not. DC Water’s own published FY 2026 table puts CAP3 at $163,900 for a household of four, and CAP2 at $131,100. Utility programs are frequently pegged to local area income rather than the federal poverty guidelines, which means the household that assumes it is over the line is often the household that qualifies.
4. “If it’s on a .gov page, it’s current.” On September 6, 2026 a California state regulator’s consumer page still described LIHWAP as actively enrolling, with a “$2,000” credit households “can apply” for — two and a half years after the state agency that ran it says it sunset.

What we could not verify, and therefore did not claim. New York’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance water assistance page never gave us its content: a command-line request returned a bot-protection shell with no article text, an automated fetch service returned a connection reset, and a real browser could not navigate to the host. So New York is absent from the state table rather than guessed at. Michigan’s page refused command-line requests and an automated fetch service and was read in a real browser instead. New Jersey’s DCAid portal still lists LIHWAP as a service while the state’s own LIHWAP FAQ URL returns 404, so we could not determine its status and left it out entirely. We did not verify Seattle’s dollar income limits, which are generated by a calculator we could not read, so we quote only the discount percentages the page states in text. We do not publish a national list of utilities with assistance programs, because no federal source maintains one — EPA’s compendium documents program types, not a directory. And we make no claim about whether Congress will fund the IIJA Section 50109 pilot.

Water rates, utility assistance rules and state program funding change constantly and are set locally. The federal facts quoted here are stable; the local ones are a snapshot. If something here contradicts what your utility or your state agency tells you about your own account, follow them for your situation and tell us so we can re-check the guide.

This is general information, not legal or financial advice. Last updated: September 6, 2026.