Lincoln Water & Wastewater Tap and Impact Fees (2026)

In Lincoln, water comes from Lincoln Water System (LWS), and sewer comes from the Transportation and Utilities Department’s Wastewater Division; LWS customer service bills and permits both. For a new single-family home with the standard 3/4-inch meter, the published charges come to $3,388: LWS’s $976 water tap permit (tap, meter and radio-read module bundled together) plus a $278 wastewater tap, and three citywide impact fees on that meter — $881 Water System, $546 Water Distribution and $707 Wastewater — that fund treatment plants, mains and reservoirs. The caveat that matters most: the tap fees are reviewed every year and could change January 1, 2027, but the impact fees are unusually stable — a 2025 City Council resolution froze them at the January 1, 2025 level through December 31, 2033. For how this compares nationally, see our guide to the cost to connect to city water.

Lincoln tap and connection charges at a glance

The table below draws on two city pages: LWS’s tapping-permit schedule sets the physical tap and meter charge, while the citywide Impact Fee Schedule sets three separate impact fees keyed to the same meter size. Rows above 1-inch are marked not typical — LWS’s minimum residential meter is 3/4-inch, and Lincoln does not offer a 5/8-inch connection.

Worked example: a new home in Lincoln

Assume a new house takes standard LWS and Wastewater Division service with no unusual site conditions. The tap numbers are from LWS’s Water and Sanitary Sewer Tapping Permit Fees, effective January 1, 2026. The three impact fees are from the city’s Impact Fee Schedule, in effect since January 1, 2025.

Published LWS and citywide impact-fee charges for one new home, by meter size (plumber’s work not included).

The wastewater tap is a flat $278 regardless of water meter size — the sewer lateral tap doesn’t scale with the meter the way the water tap and the three impact fees do. The water tap fee already includes 15 units of construction water at every size. On services 1 1/2-inch and larger, the published tap price excludes the tapping sleeve and valve, billed separately.

Impact fees are paid on the meter, not the lot: if a buyer later upsizes from a 3/4-inch to a 1-inch meter, LWS credits the impact fee already paid and charges only the $1,419 net increase ($3,553 combined total for 1-inch minus $2,134 already paid for 3/4-inch, per the Impact Fees FAQ).

Costs outside the Lincoln fee schedule

Everything below the tap is priced by your builder’s plumber, and the city’s own plumbing permit adds fixture-by-fixture charges on top of the LWS and impact fees:

• Plumbing permit fixtures. Lincoln’s Building & Safety plumbing fee schedule charges per item, not a single connection fee: $8 each for “Domestic Water Supply,” “New Water/Waste Piping” and most fixtures (water closet, sink, water heater), plus $25 per 100 feet for a 4-inch sanitary sewer lateral or private water up to 1-inch. These add up across the whole house on a typical new-construction permit.
• Water service line from the main to the meter. National estimate $30–$150 per foot, typically about $50. See water service line cost.
• Building sewer from the house to the public main. National estimate $50–$250 per foot, typically about $100. See sewer lateral cost.
• Rock, clay or deep digging. National estimates put hard digging at 1.2× to 7× the normal-soil rate. See utility trenching cost.
• Tapping sleeve and valve on services 1 1/2-inch and larger, billed separately from the tap fee above.
• Electric service from Lincoln Electric System (LES), a separate municipal utility. We have no verified LES connection-fee figure for this page.

National figures are estimates from our benchmark set. Put your plumber’s quote into the calculator, which loads Lincoln’s official fees:

How and when Lincoln fees are paid

An application for new or replacement water service is made through the city’s Development Services Center, per LWS’s Water Service Manual. LWS Customer Service handles new-tap permits directly (402-441-7534) and bills both the water tap and the wastewater tap on one schedule. LWS assesses a $30 fee for a cancelled tap, except for weather-related cancellations.

The three impact fees run on a separate timeline: per the city’s Impact Fees overview, each is “calculated based on a pre-set formula and paid at the time of, or prior to, the issuance of the building, water, and/or occupancy permit.” Money collected in each of the city’s seven impact-fee districts is spent only on new infrastructure inside that district.

What could change in Lincoln

• Tap fees reviewed annually. LWS says it “annually complete[s] a review of the cost of tapping” and updates the schedule each January 1. The figures above are effective January 1, 2026; check for a new schedule after January 1, 2027.
• Impact fees frozen through 2033. Lincoln Municipal Code 27.82.110 normally adjusts impact fees for inflation every January 1. Resolution A-95025, adopted February 3, 2025, instead froze the Water System, Water Distribution and Wastewater schedules (with Arterial Street and Neighborhood Park/Trail) at their January 1, 2025 levels through December 31, 2033, with inflation adjustments resuming in 2034. The freeze took effect after Lincoln voters renewed the quarter-cent “Lincoln on the Move” sales tax on April 8, 2025.
• Category exemptions are narrow but permanent. A parcel on the city’s exemption maps pays $0 for that specific category indefinitely, with no published expiration date.

How Lincoln compares with Omaha

Both Nebraska cities charge a per-meter capital charge on top of a physical tap, priced differently. Omaha’s M.U.D. bundles supply, treatment and distribution into one $2,112 impact fee for a 3/4-inch meter, with the $393 meter priced apart from the $597 tap. Lincoln splits the same idea into three named fees ($881 + $546 + $707 = $2,134) but bundles its meter into one $976 tap-and-meter charge. Totals land close ($3,388 versus $3,155.25), though Lincoln’s impact fees are locked through 2033 while Omaha’s were freshly restructured in 2026.

Lincoln tap fee FAQ

Related: water tap fees · sewer tap fees · water meter installation cost · tap fee vs. impact fee · Omaha fees · Kansas City fees · utility connection cost calculator

Lincoln fee sources

• Water and Sanitary Sewer Tapping Permit Fees, effective January 1, 2026, City of Lincoln – Lincoln Water System (checked Sep 26, 2026)
• Impact Fee Schedule, effective January 1, 2025, City of Lincoln – Transportation and Utilities, Right-of-Way Services (checked Sep 26, 2026)
• Impact Fees overview and FAQ, City of Lincoln (checked Sep 26, 2026)
• Impact Fees – Exemption and Exclusion Areas, City of Lincoln (checked Sep 26, 2026)
• Resolution No. A-95025 (adopted February 3, 2025), freezing impact-fee schedules through December 31, 2033, Lincoln City Council (checked Sep 26, 2026)
• City of Lincoln Water Service Manual (April 2022), City of Lincoln – Lincoln Water System (checked Sep 26, 2026)
• Plumbing Fees, City of Lincoln – Planning and Development Services, Building & Safety (checked Sep 26, 2026)
• Lincoln Municipal Code Chapter 27.82, Impact Fees, City of Lincoln (checked Sep 26, 2026)