Water tariffs, where households spend the most

The 2024 annual water bill for an average three-person family with a consumption of 150 cubic metres is almost 400 euros, 393 to be precise, compared to 378.7 euros in 2023. The expenditure becomes 172 euro for the one-person family with a consumption of 56 cubic metres. This is the finding of the report 'The new challenge of quality, tariffs, investments and climate change. Which sustainable structural policies in the area?" produced by the Ircaf Study Centre. The water service tariffs of 111 provincial capitals and the quality of services provided to users were analysed.

The annual expenditure is the result of the sum of several items that make up the cost of the water service. Of all of them, the aqueduct accounts for 40.6%, sewerage for another 11.7%, and purification expenditure, 102 euros or 26% of the expenditure of a family of three. Then there are other cost items and VAT at 10%.

If 393 euro is the average cost in some provinces, one can end up spending more than a third more. This is the case in the Lazio province of Frosinone, a city where the bill for the consumption of three people peaks at 705.4 euro, 79% more than the national average. This is followed by several Tuscan provinces where spending ranges from a maximum of EUR 637.8 in Pisa (+62%) to a minimum of EUR 559.6 in Prato and Pistoia. The top ten of heavy bills is closed by Latina, where the Rossi family spends 557.2 euro a year, almost 42% more. Northern Italy and some southern Italian cities vie for the palm of light bills. Cosenza comes out on top with an expenditure of just EUR 140 a year (-64% on the national average) preceded by Campobasso and Isernia with EUR 190 (-51%). Among the best positioned are Milan with 225.3 euro, Monza and Brianza at 243 euro, but also Avellino (253 euro) and Catania with 263 euro. The difference separating Frosinone from Cosenza is abysmal: the gap is 403 per cent. At the level of macro areas, water is paid more in Central Italy, where the average expenditure for three people is 519 euro, while the cheapest service is in the North-West with 335 euro. In the South and Islands, spending is also 10 per cent lower than the national average.

Compared to the previous survey, Ircaf shows at national level an average increase in the order of 3.77%, but in Northern Italy here is +7.3% and in the South and Islands a 'saving' of four tenths of a point. In the long term, between 2011 and 2024, the increases applied by the operators exceed the inflation rate by a few multiples, because expenditure has risen from EUR 216 in 2011 to the current EUR 393, an increase of 81.5%.

In the integrated water service, according to Ircaf's analysis of Arera data, the proverb 'the more you spend the less you spend' does not seem to hold true. In fact, the comparison between the cost of the service versus the technical quality, which among other things includes the quality of the water supplied, water leaks, adequacy of the sewerage system up to the quality of purified water, and the service rewards the North-West where an average expenditure much lower than the national average corresponds to both technical and contractual quality, the time to carry out technical services such as estimates, connections, pressure checks, instalment payments and counters for the public, higher than the national average. In the North-East, on the other hand, against an expenditure in line with the average, users receive a technical quality in line with the average and a slightly higher contractual quality. In Central Italy, where expenditure is well above average, the technical quality of the service is below average and there is a much higher contractual quality than the national average. This analysis is more difficult to carry out in the South and Islands where the Egato, the government bodies of the optimal territorial ambit that must collect this information, are not yet operational. This is also why in the South an average expenditure slightly below the national average corresponds to both a technical quality and a contractual quality much lower than the national average.