Treasury norm: 15% to 30%
Share of water bought or purified that is lost before it is sold.
Note: includes the metro’s utility company.
Source: Johannesburg’s audited annual financial statements.
Water · Gauteng
Johannesburg
Is my water reliable? How much is lost? Is it safe?
33.0%
of the water bought or purified was lost before it was sold in 2024-25. Treasury’s norm is 15% to 30%.
Official: Audited annual financial statements · Data as of 2024-25 financial year (audited statements) · Next update expected Jan 2027 (2025-26 annual reports) · Last updated
Compare all eight metros: Water. An asterisk marks a figure our automated checks found inconsistent with another official figure; it is shown as reported, explained in a footnote and left out of rankings.
Water cut for two days or more
Official: Stats SA, General Household Survey 2025 · Data as of General Household Survey 2025
829 000
households in Johannesburg told Stats SA their water had been cut for 48 hours or more at a time in the past year, out of about 2 377 000 households.
Stats SA: “a smaller percentage of households in metropolitan areas reported water interruptions (30,0% compared with 37,6%). Water interruptions were most common in eThekwini (43,9%), which is almost six time more common than in the City of Cape Town (7,8%).”
Cut 2+ days: households that answered yes to a water cut of 48 hours or more at a time, in thousands as Stats SA prints them (Table 2.8: Water and sanitation variables by metro); all households from Table 3.7. A sample survey. Sources: GHS 2025: selected development indicators, metros (P0318.3); the quotation is from the main GHS 2025 release (P0318), section 9.3. For cuts happening now, see the city’s notices and community reports.
Water lost before it reaches a meter
Official: audited annual financial statements · Data as of 2024-25 financial year (audited statements) · Next update expected Jan 2027 (2025-26 annual reports) · Last updated
Water a metro buys or purifies but never bills: leaks, burst pipes, illegal connections and faulty meters. Treasury’s norm is 15% to 30%.
What these words mean
- Distribution losses
- Water or electricity a metro buys or produces but never bills: leaks, theft, illegal connections and faulty meters.
- Non-revenue water
- All water that earns no money, including water given free to poor households. Close to, but not the same as, water lost.
- Treasury norm
- A target National Treasury sets for every municipality in MFMA Circular 71, so metros can be compared on the same scale.
Water bought from Rand Water
Official: Rand Water, weekly meter readings · week of 21 Sep 2026 · Data as of week of 21 Sep 2026 · Updates: weekly · Last updated
What these words mean
- Ml a day
- Megalitres a day. One megalitre is a million litres, about half an Olympic swimming pool.
- Water-use licence
- The national Department of Water and Sanitation’s permission for Rand Water to take water from the Vaal system: a permanent amount, and a higher temporary one. Rand Water shows each metro’s share as a level in Ml a day.
1 711 Ml a day
Johannesburg’s average use of Rand Water’s water in the week of 21 Sep 2026: 26% above the 1 356 Ml a day Rand Water sets for Johannesburg under its permanent licence, and 1% more than a year earlier (1 686 Ml a day).
Average megalitres a day each week, read from Rand Water’s bulk meters. This is water the metro buys, not water residents use: some is lost in the metro’s own pipes (see “Water lost before it reaches a meter”). Rand Water states its licences as 1 600 million m³ a year (permanent) and 1 803 million m³ a year (temporary), and shows each metro’s level in Ml a day. Source: Rand Water, weekly meter readings, 21 Sep 2026 (all weeks).
Main water supply system
Official: DWS weekly State of Reservoirs, copied 10 Oct 2026 · Data as of see the copy date · Updates: DWS publishes weekly; we copy by hand
97%
full: the Integrated Vaal River System, Johannesburg’s main water supply system. Last week 101%; a year ago 98%.
DWS: these summaries cover only the dams in its State of Reservoirs report. Several metros share a system: Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni all draw mainly on the Integrated Vaal River System. Each metro’s main system is confirmed from its own documents (source). The DWS site refuses automated requests, so these figures are copied by hand from its summary pages each week (copied 10 Oct 2026; the report’s own date was not copied). Source: DWS, weekly summary by water supply system.
Water outage notices
Official: the metro · Data as of see each notice’s date · Updates: checked daily · Last updated
Johannesburg Water publishes its water notices mostly on social media, not on a page we can read.
Places are matched by their Stats SA Census 2011 names, longest name first, with no guessing; a name we cannot match is listed for checking and not linked to a ward. Notices before 1 Jan 2025 are not included. Johannesburg: Johannesburg Water publishes its water notices mostly on social media, not on a page we can read. Where a metro publishes no notices, residents can report an outage (community reports, unverified).
Still to come on this page
- Dam levels every week for Johannesburg’s supply system, with the report’s own date. Department of Water and Sanitation, weekly state of reservoirs · the department’s sites refuse automated requests, including from GitHub’s servers; the figures above were copied by hand
- Drinking-water and wastewater ratings. Department of Water and Sanitation, Blue Drop and Green Drop reports · ws.dws.gov.za and www.dws.gov.za refuse automated requests, including from GitHub’s servers