Research · Water and drought
Outdoor watering restrictions in 25 water systems
One row per utility, read from its own conservation page and sorted into seven rule types, with the U.S. Drought Monitor for context. 12 states, not a national list.
Written by HyreYard Research Desk Primary-source research and fact checking
The finding
12 of the 25 water systems we read assign watering days (odd/even, last digit or a mapped group).
Of the rest, three limit hours only, one caps the number of days, four are in a voluntary stage and five publish no day or hour limit.
Assigned days are not always a drought measure: Dallas, Fort Worth, El Paso, Miami-Dade, Sacramento and TMWA run them year-round. Your own water retailer’s page is the rule for your address.
When we checked, and when we check again
Published: September 5, 2026. Last verified: September 5, 2026. Primary sources: each system’s conservation page in the table, plus the U.S. Drought Monitor weekly map (NDMC / USDA / NOAA / NASA).
Next review: the table is re-read before the page is updated; the Last verified date above moves only when every row has been checked again.
A watering-restriction table that is not re-read tells someone they may water when they may not. The retrieval date on every row is the claim. Rules can change the week after we read them, so treat the table as a starting point and open your utility’s link before you water.
Why 25 water systems and not several thousand?
We planned a national tracker. This is not one, and the reason belongs above the table.
EPA’s Report on the Environment puts more than 320 million people: roughly 95 percent of the U.S. population: on a community water system in FY 2023. There are on the order of fifty thousand such systems.
Outdoor watering rules, where they exist, live on the retailer’s conservation page, in a drought-contingency plan, in a municipal code chapter, or in a water-management-district order. There is no common schema.
Inclusion for this launch pass: Large community water systems: or the regional authority that sets the residential watering rule for its member retailers: in drought-exposed states (California, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Florida, Oregon, Washington, North Carolina, Georgia), with a live conservation-rule URL retrieved on September 5, 2026.
Not a national tracker of the roughly 50,000 U.S. community water systems. Not a scrape of every retailer inside a metro. Not HyreYard’s seven-state landscaper roster.
Population served is recorded only where the utility (or a primary disclosure) published a figure we could label. That is 3 of 25 rows, summing to 3,075,000 on those labelled figures. Some of those figures are retail, some are regional; they are not SDWIS population-served. So we publish no national coverage percentage.
HyreYard’s own company files cover seven states and are not used here: a company count is not a watering rule.
Seven rule types, so the systems can be compared
Utilities do not use the same words. HyreYard’s taxonomy is original work. The primary class is what a homeowner with spray irrigation may do this week. Overlays: waste prohibitions, a state nonfunctional-turf ban, a seasonal calendar: sit on top and are recorded separately.
- None published (5)
- The conservation page exists. Residential spray irrigation is not limited by assigned day or by hour. Waste rules (runoff, rain, hardscape, hose without a shut-off) may still apply.
- Voluntary (4)
- The utility asks for a reduction, publishes a recommended schedule, or has declared an early drought stage that does not yet assign watering days to residential spray irrigation.
- Hours only (3)
- Hours are restricted. Days are not assigned. A homeowner may water any day inside the window.
- Assigned days (12)
- Odd/even address, last digit, or a mapped group assigns watering days. Hours can apply as well. This is what a “city watering schedule” refers to in plain speech.
- Days-per-week cap (1)
- A maximum number of watering days per week is mandatory. The customer chooses which days. Not the same as an assigned-day ordinance.
- Drip / hand-water (0)
- Spray irrigation of lawns is prohibited. Drip, soaker, or a hand-held hose may remain.
- Lawn watering banned (0)
- Lawn watering, or all spray irrigation, is prohibited. A dated start is recorded when the ban is scheduled rather than already in force.
How to read a row
Class is the primary residential spray-irrigation rule in force on September 5, 2026.
Stage is the utility’s own name for where it sits on its drought or conservation ladder: Conservation Stage, Phase 2, Stage 1 Water Alert, Water Shortage Preparation. Those names do not translate. A Phoenix Stage 1 is not a San Antonio Stage 2.
Trigger is why the current rule is the current rule: a reservoir elevation, an aquifer well, a calendar, a permanent ordinance. Penalty is what the utility published. A blank or “not stated” is a gap, not a finding that there is no penalty.
Hand watering, drip and vegetable gardens can be exempt. The table describes spray irrigation of lawns unless the notes say otherwise. HOA rules, well users and recycled-water customers can sit outside the retailer’s ordinance. Confirm with the provider.
The 25 systems
LADWP (CA): assigned days
Provider: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Stage: Phase 2.
Days: Odd: Mon, Wed, Fri. Even: Sun, Tue, Thu.
Hours: Before 9 a.m. or after 4 p.m.
Trigger: Emergency Water Conservation Plan Ordinance phases. Phase 2 is current on the conservation page.
Penalty: Meters under 2 in., Phase 2: written warning, then $100 / $200 / $300, then flow restriction.
Effective: Phase 2 in force on retrieval. Ordinance effective May 3, 2016. · utility source
San Diego PUD (CA): time-of-day only
Provider: City of San Diego Public Utilities. Stage: Permanent mandatory restrictions.
Days: Any day.
Hours: Before 10 a.m. or after 6 p.m.
Trigger: Year-round municipal water-waste prohibitions (San Diego Municipal Code ch. 6, art. 7, div. 38). Not a drought-stage declaration.
Penalty: Not stated on the conservation page.
Effective: Permanent. Page current on retrieval. · utility source
EBMUD (CA): no day or hour limit published
Provider: East Bay Municipal Utility District. Stage: No numbered drought stage on the conservation regulations.
Days: None assigned. Consecutive-day irrigation is discouraged, not scheduled.
Hours: None assigned.
Trigger: Section 29 of EBMUD Regulations Governing Water Service, revised July 1, 2026.
Penalty: Not stated on Section 29 as a dollar schedule. Excessive-use penalties exist separately for drought stages 2–4 (Ordinance 373-21) and are not in force as a current stage on retrieval.
Effective: Section 29 dated July 1, 2026. · utility source
SFPUC (CA): no day or hour limit published
Provider: San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. Stage: No retail drought stage on the waste-restriction page.
Days: None assigned.
Hours: None assigned.
Trigger: SFPUC Rules and Regulations Governing Water Service, Rule 12 (waste) and Rule 17 (nonfunctional turf / AB 1572).
Penalty: Not stated as a dollar schedule on the prevent-water-waste page.
Effective: Rule 12 updated by resolutions through 2023; Rule 17 implements AB 1572 phase-in. · utility source
Sacramento DOU (CA): assigned days
Provider: City of Sacramento Department of Utilities. Stage: Seasonal ordinance (not a drought-stage number).
Days: Mar 1–Oct 31: even Wed and Sun; odd Tue and Sat. Nov 1–Feb 28: one day, Saturday or Sunday only.
Hours: Mar 1–Oct 31: before 10 a.m. and/or after 7 p.m. Winter: any hour on the allowed day.
Trigger: City watering-schedule ordinance. Seasonal calendar, not a reservoir trigger on the schedule page.
Penalty: First notice: written, no fine. Second within 365 days: $25 (waivable via a conservation program). Third: $100. Fourth and later: $500.
Effective: Seasonal calendar in force on retrieval. · utility source
IRWD (CA): voluntary / recommended
Provider: Irvine Ranch Water District. Stage: No current shortage level on the watering-guide page.
Days: Recommended by month (e.g. spray turf in September: 4 days, 2 cycles of 3 minutes). Days are not assigned by address.
Hours: Not assigned as a prohibition. Morning cycle-and-soak is recommended.
Trigger: Conservation-based rate design (monthly landscape budget) plus a published recommended schedule. Not a day-of-week ordinance.
Penalty: No day-of-week citation schedule on the watering guide. Use above the budget is billed in inefficient/wasteful tiers.
Effective: Watering guide current on retrieval. Residential rates effective July 1, 2026. · utility source
Austin Water (TX): assigned days
Provider: Austin Water. Stage: Conservation Stage.
Days: Residential automatic/manual irrigation: even Thursday; odd Wednesday. Hose-end and drip: even Thursday and Sunday; odd Wednesday and Saturday.
Hours: Midnight–10 a.m. or 7 p.m.–midnight.
Trigger: Conservation Stage of the Drought Contingency Plan. In force as of September 2, 2025; still the stage on retrieval. Stages 1–5 are reservoir-storage triggered on Lakes Buchanan and Travis.
Penalty: Up to $1,000 per violation (equity-based penalty guidance, v2026.06.01). First-contact path is 3-1-1.
Effective: Conservation Stage since September 2, 2025. · utility source
SAWS (TX): assigned days
Provider: San Antonio Water System. Stage: Stage 2.
Days: Once a week by last digit: 0–1 Monday; 2–3 Tuesday; 4–5 Wednesday; 6–7 Thursday; 8–9 Friday. No weekend watering day. Medians without an address: Wednesday.
Hours: 5–10 a.m. and 9 p.m.–midnight on the assigned day.
Trigger: Edwards Aquifer J-17 10-day rolling average. Stage 2 begins at 650 feet msl. Stage 3 (640 feet) ended August 4, 2026 after the 10-day average rose above the Stage 3 trigger.
Penalty: Not restated as a dollar schedule on the drought-restrictions page. Water waste is prohibited year-round.
Effective: Stage 2 effective August 4, 2026. · utility source
Dallas Water (TX): assigned days
Provider: Dallas Water Utilities. Stage: Year-round conservation ordinance (not a drought stage).
Days: Even (and no address): Sunday and Thursday. Odd: Saturday and Wednesday. Maximum twice weekly.
Hours: No watering 10 a.m.–6 p.m. from April 1 through October 31, including on assigned days.
Trigger: Dallas City Code ch. 49, §49-21 (lawn and landscape irrigation). Permanent. Drought Contingency Plan stages can tighten to one day or none; those stages were not declared on the May 2026 bill insert.
Penalty: Ordinance materials: $250 to $2,000 per incident. First offenses: warning.
Effective: Twice-weekly schedule is year-round. Time-of-day window is seasonal (Apr 1–Oct 31). · utility source
Fort Worth Water (TX): assigned days
Provider: Fort Worth Water. Stage: Year-round Water Wise / conservation ordinance.
Days: Residential even: Wednesday and Saturday. Residential odd: Thursday and Sunday. Non-residential (apartments, businesses, parks, common areas): Tuesday and Friday. Monday: no watering.
Hours: No irrigation-system or sprinkler watering 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
Trigger: Year-round outdoor water-use requirements under the conservation and drought/emergency plans. Not a current drought-stage number on the twice-per-week page.
Penalty: First violation: warning postcard, no fee. Repeat watering-on-the-wrong-day is enforced; 2025 city notice cited 170,000+ recorded violations the prior summer, 94% repeat.
Effective: Year-round on retrieval. · utility source
El Paso Water (TX): assigned days
Provider: El Paso Water. Stage: Year-round conservation ordinance.
Days: Even: Tue, Thu or Sat (up to three). Odd: Wed, Fri or Sun. No residential watering on Monday. Schools, parks, cemeteries, golf and industrial: Mon, Wed or Fri.
Hours: April 1–September 30: before 10 a.m. or after 6 p.m. on the allowed days.
Trigger: City Code ch. 15.13, mandatory lawn and landscape watering. Permanent. A separate 2025 drought resolution addressed Rio Grande supply procurement, not a change to the three-day schedule.
Penalty: $50 to $500 per citation. Wrong day, wrong time, and water in the street are listed as waste.
Effective: Year-round days; seasonal hours Apr 1–Sep 30. · utility source
Phoenix Water (AZ): voluntary / recommended
Provider: City of Phoenix Water Services. Stage: Stage 1 Water Alert.
Days: None assigned to residential customers.
Hours: None assigned as a Stage 1 mandate. Landscape guidelines recommend avoiding the hottest hours; that is not an assigned-day ordinance.
Trigger: Drought Management Plan (City Code ch. 37). Stage 1: an insufficient supply situation appears likely. Declared 2022 on Colorado River / Lakes Mead and Powell conditions; still in effect on retrieval. Stage 2 would add mandatory measures.
Penalty: Stage 1 is education plus enforcement of existing water-waste provisions in Chapter 37. No day-of-week citation schedule is published for Stage 1.
Effective: Stage 1 in force on retrieval (Drought Dashboard). · utility source
Tucson Water (AZ): voluntary / recommended
Provider: Tucson Water. Stage: Tier 2 (Colorado River / Drought Preparedness Plan).
Days: None assigned. Seasonal watering guidelines (University of Arizona / Zanjero) recommend frequency by plant type, not an address day.
Hours: Guidelines: avoid 10 a.m.–6 p.m. Not published as a mandatory assigned-day rule.
Trigger: Tucson Drought Preparedness and Response Plan, aligned with the 2019 Drought Contingency Plan. Tier 2 when Lake Mead is in the corresponding shortage band. Page states “We are currently in Tier 2.”
Penalty: Water Waste Ordinance: runoff onto public or neighboring property, ponding, commercial hardscape washing, broken heads, unrepaired leaks. Fines and discontinued service are available; inspectors’ stated goal is education.
Effective: Tier 2 current on the drought-preparedness page. · utility source
SNWA / LVVWD (NV): assigned days
Provider: Southern Nevada Water Authority (Las Vegas Valley Water District and member agencies). Stage: Year-round seasonal schedule (not a numbered drought stage).
Days: Assigned watering group (A–F by location, on the bill or lookup). Sunday sprinkler watering is prohibited in every season. Sep 1–Oct 31: three assigned days/week. Nov 1–Feb 28: one assigned day/week. Mar 1–Apr 30: three assigned days/week. May 1–Aug 31: up to six days with a mid-day blackout; Sunday still prohibited.
Hours: May 1–Aug 31: no landscape irrigation 11 a.m.–7 p.m.
Trigger: Permanent seasonal watering restrictions for all municipal customers. Separate Nevada law bans Colorado River water on nonfunctional turf from January 1, 2027.
Penalty: Water-waste fee or citation for irrigating outside assigned days.
Effective: Fall three-day schedule in force on retrieval (Sep 1–Oct 31). NFT irrigation ban begins January 1, 2027. · utility source
TMWA (NV): assigned days
Provider: Truckee Meadows Water Authority. Stage: Standard assigned-day watering (non-drought program).
Days: Even: Tue, Thu, Sat. Odd: Wed, Fri, Sun. No watering on Monday.
Hours: No watering noon–6 p.m. from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
Trigger: Condition of service / water-efficiency codes. Assigned-day watering has been in place for more than 30 years and applies in wet or dry years. Drought levels 2–4 enhance the campaign; they were not the stated 2026 operating mode on the homepage materials retrieved.
Penalty: Water-waste program: a second violation may result in a $25 fee; repeated violations within the same year up to $75 per incident (Water Resource Plan discussion).
Effective: Year-round assigned days; summer hours Memorial Day–Labor Day. · utility source
Denver Water (CO): assigned days
Provider: Denver Water. Stage: Stage 1 drought.
Days: Through September 30, 2026: single-family even Sun and Thu; single-family odd Wed and Sat; all others (multifamily and commercial) Tue and Fri. From October 1, 2026: grass watering and all spray irrigation prohibited.
Hours: Before 10 a.m. or after 6 p.m. on assigned days (through Sep 30).
Trigger: Stage 1 drought declared March 25, 2026 (Board Resolution #002-2026) after record-low snowpack. Target: at least 20% reduction in total use. August 26, 2026 amendment sets a formal end to lawn-watering season on October 1, 2026.
Penalty: Water-waste violations and charges. Leaking or broken sprinklers must be fixed within 10 days.
Effective: Stage 1 since March 25, 2026. Lawn/spray shutdown begins October 1, 2026. · utility source
Colorado Springs Utilities (CO): frequency cap, days unassigned
Provider: Colorado Springs Utilities. Stage: Water Shortage Preparation.
Days: Up to three days a week, Sunday–Saturday. The customer chooses the days. Not an odd/even assignment.
Hours: May 1–Oct 15: before 10 a.m. or after 6 p.m.
Trigger: Water Wise Rules are year-round (City Code water-shortage article). Water Shortage Preparation, a preliminary stage of the Water Shortage Ordinance, was approved by the Utilities Board on March 18, 2026 after low snowpack and faster melt. It does not add a fourth restriction beyond the existing three-day cap.
Penalty: Water-waste rules (pooling, runoff, unrepaired leaks within 10 days, hose without shut-off, hardscape washing except health and safety). Dollar schedule not on the Water Wise Rules page.
Effective: Water Wise Rules year-round. Water Shortage Preparation since March 18, 2026. Time-of-day window May 1–Oct 15. · utility source
SLC Public Utilities (UT): voluntary / recommended
Provider: Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities. Stage: Stage 2 Water Shortage Advisory.
Days: Residential: none assigned. The city asks customers to water one day less than they normally would, and to avoid watering more than twice a week. Institutional customers (parks, government, schools, churches): stay within irrigation-meter budgets; sites without a budget limited to two times per week.
Hours: Best-practice time-of-day watering is required of municipal and government facilities. Not published as a residential assigned-day ordinance.
Trigger: Drought and Water Shortage Contingency Plan, five stages. Stage 2 (“mild”) recommended by Public Utilities; Mayor announced the advisory. Target: 10 million gallons per day of reduced use.
Penalty: No residential day-of-week citation schedule on the drought FAQ. Institutional customers must stay within budgets.
Effective: Stage 2 advisory in force on retrieval (drought-information page updated August 30, 2026). · utility source
ABCWUA (NM): time-of-day only
Provider: Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority. Stage: No odd/even drought stage. “Water by the Numbers” is the recommended frequency..
Days: None assigned. Recommended: 1 day/week in March and November; 2 in April, May, September, October; 3 in June–August (1-2-3-2-1).
Hours: April 1–October 31: spray irrigation only 7 p.m.–11 a.m. (i.e. no spray 11 a.m.–7 p.m.). Drip, low-precipitation bubblers, hand watering and container plants are exempt from the hour rule.
Trigger: Water Waste Ordinance §4-1-4. The Board may require every-other-day or 1–3 days/week under the Drought Management Strategy; that step is discretionary and is not stated as currently invoked on the Water by the Numbers page.
Penalty: Water-waste enforcement (hotline 505-842-WATR, option 5). Dollar schedule not on the Water by the Numbers page.
Effective: Hour rule each year Apr 1–Oct 31. Water by the Numbers is the 2026 recommended program. · utility source
Miami-Dade WASD (FL): assigned days
Provider: Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department. Stage: Year-round county restrictions.
Days: Odd: Wednesday and Saturday. Even: Thursday and Sunday.
Hours: Before 10 a.m. and after 4 p.m. Choose one window; twice-a-day watering is discouraged.
Trigger: Year-round landscape-irrigation rule aligned with South Florida Water Management District requirements, applied to any water source including wells and canals.
Penalty: Not stated as a dollar schedule on the outdoor-restrictions page. 311 is the reporting path.
Effective: Year-round on retrieval. · utility source
Portland Water Bureau (OR): no day or hour limit published
Provider: Portland Water Bureau. Stage: No curtailment. Seasonal supply planning: sufficient supply..
Days: None assigned.
Hours: None assigned.
Trigger: Curtailment stages exist (voluntary; Stage 2 mandatory 20–50% cut; Stage 3 outdoor use banned). None is declared. August 25, 2026 update: about 5.9 billion gallons in the Bull Run reservoirs.
Penalty: None for watering days, because none are assigned.
Effective: No watering restriction in force on retrieval. · utility source
Seattle Public Utilities (WA): no day or hour limit published
Provider: Seattle Public Utilities. Stage: No mandatory curtailment. Regional supply described as sufficient for people and fish this summer..
Days: None assigned.
Hours: None assigned.
Trigger: Water Shortage Contingency Plan includes mandatory twice-weekly and once-weekly assigned-day options and a no-irrigation option. None is in force. April 8, 2026: SPU said the state emergency drought declaration does not affect Seattle’s regional water system.
Penalty: None for watering days, because none are assigned.
Effective: No watering restriction in force on retrieval. Supply-conditions page dated August 31, 2026. · utility source
Charlotte Water (NC): assigned days
Provider: Charlotte Water. Stage: Mandatory Stage 2 (Low Inflow Protocol).
Days: Odd: Tue evening–Wed morning and Sat evening–Sun morning. Even: Wed evening–Thu morning and Sun evening–Mon morning.
Hours: 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. the following morning on assigned days.
Trigger: Regional Low Inflow Protocol on the Catawba. Stage 2 began May 15, 2026. Still posted as the drought stage on retrieval.
Penalty: Enforcement statistics as of September 1, 2026: 2,154 violations reported, 339 violations, 334 variances received, 195 approved. Dollar schedule not on the drought-resources page.
Effective: Stage 2 since May 15, 2026. · utility source
Raleigh Water (NC): no day or hour limit published
Provider: Raleigh Water. Stage: Permanent conservation measures. Stage 1 restrictions lifted August 3, 2026..
Days: None assigned under current (post-lift) policy. Hose-end spray gun: any day. Stage 1 (when in force) assigned in-ground systems to odd Tuesday / even Wednesday, midnight–10 a.m.
Hours: None assigned under current policy.
Trigger: Water Shortage Response Plan, storage in Falls Lake (and Lake Benson) by time of year. Stage 1 ran April 20–August 3, 2026. September 2, 2026 supply page: Falls Lake water-supply pool 84% remaining; Central North Carolina still in Severe Drought on hydrologic classification.
Penalty: Stage 1 noncompliance can result in penalties. Not applicable to watering days while Stage 1 is lifted.
Effective: Stage 1 lifted August 3, 2026. No watering-day restriction in force on retrieval. · utility source
Atlanta DWM (GA): time-of-day only
Provider: City of Atlanta Department of Watershed Management. Stage: State Level 1 drought declaration (voluntary). No city mandatory day-of-week limits..
Days: None assigned.
Hours: Non-drought outdoor watering of ground cover, trees, shrubs or other plants: 4 p.m. to 10 a.m. only (Georgia Water Stewardship Act).
Trigger: Georgia EPD Level 1 drought response for parts of the state including metro Atlanta, announced by DWM on April 28, 2026. Level 1 is the earliest state stage and is framed as voluntary conservation.
Penalty: No mandatory day-of-week citation schedule. “There are currently no mandatory water use restrictions” (April 28, 2026 DWM release).
Effective: Statewide hours are permanent. Level 1 declaration April 28, 2026. · utility source
Outdoor watering rules for 25 water systems, retrieved September 5, 2026. Class is HyreYard’s taxonomy. Stage, days, hours, trigger, penalty and effective date are the utility’s own published terms. Every source link is the page that was read.
Not legal advice, and not a substitute for the utility page. Stages change. Emergency orders can land between weekly reviews. If your bill names a different retailer than the city you live in, that retailer’s page is the one that counts.
What do the 25 systems show?
Assigned days are the plurality, not the universe. 12 of 25 systems: 48% of this compilation: tell a homeowner which days the sprinklers may run. The rest do not. Treating “watering restrictions by city” as if every large utility posted an odd/even calendar is a misread of the sector.
A permanent ordinance is not a drought stage. Dallas Water, Fort Worth Water, El Paso Water, Miami-Dade WASD, Sacramento DOU and TMWA assign days year-round. The Drought Monitor can improve and the assigned day does not move, because the trigger is the code, not the weekly map.
A drought stage is not always an assigned day. Phoenix Water has been in a Stage 1 Water Alert since 2022 and still assigns no watering days to residential customers; Stage 1 is education plus existing waste rules.
Tucson Water is in Tier 2 of a Colorado River–aligned plan and uses high-use outreach and audits, not odd/even. SLC Public Utilities is in Stage 2 and asks residents to water one day less than they normally would; the mandate is on institutional meters.
The Drought Monitor and the utility stage are different switches. Raleigh Water lifted Stage 1 on August 3, 2026 after Falls Lake recovered; its September 2, 2026 supply page still places Central North Carolina in Severe Drought on the hydrologic classification.
Charlotte Water, in the same state, remains in Mandatory Stage 2 on the Catawba Low Inflow Protocol, with two assigned overnight windows. Two utilities, two ladders, one drought map.
Denver shows the difference in one city. Denver Water declared Stage 1 on March 25, 2026, assigned two days a week, and on August 26, 2026 set a formal end to lawn watering and spray irrigation from October 1, 2026.
Trees, shrubs and perennials may still be hand-watered or drip-irrigated. That is a dated move from assigned-days to drip/hand-water, recorded in advance of the date.
HyreYard analysis: the comparable fact is not “how dry is it.” It is which instrument the retailer is using this week: a permanent calendar, a reservoir trigger, an aquifer well, a regional district order, a recommended budget, or nothing assigned.
Water districts will not link to a lawn-care article. They will link to a table that puts their instrument next to the neighboring one without flattening the names.
Systems by state in this compilation
| State | Systems in this table | Primary classes represented |
|---|---|---|
| AZ | 2 | Voluntary / recommended |
| CA | 6 | Assigned days; Time-of-day only; No day or hour limit published; Voluntary / recommended |
| CO | 2 | Assigned days; Frequency cap, days unassigned |
| FL | 1 | Assigned days |
| GA | 1 | Time-of-day only |
| NC | 2 | Assigned days; No day or hour limit published |
| NM | 1 | Time-of-day only |
| NV | 2 | Assigned days |
| OR | 1 | No day or hour limit published |
| TX | 5 | Assigned days |
| UT | 1 | Voluntary / recommended |
| WA | 1 | No day or hour limit published |
Counts are of systems we read, not of all community water systems in the state. AZ, CA, CO, FL, GA, NC, NM, NV, OR, TX, UT, WA.
Four overlays that sit on top of the table
A homeowner can be bound by more than one instrument. Four of those instruments are statewide or regional. They are not extra rows in the retailer table, because they are not community water systems.
California AB 1572: nonfunctional turf. California Water Code §10608.14 prohibits potable irrigation of nonfunctional turf on CII property and HOA common areas on a published phase-in. It does not apply to single-family yards. Recycled water and functional (recreational) turf are outside the ban.
Tree health and immediate health-and-safety needs are carved out. Public/government property: January 1, 2027. Other CII: January 1, 2028. HOA common areas: January 1, 2029. Disadvantaged-community public property: January 1, 2031 or when state conversion funding is available, whichever is later.
Every California row in the table carries this overlay. It does not change LADWP’s three-day residential schedule. It will change what a commercial median and an HOA common area may irrigate with potable water from 2027.
Nevada AB 356: Colorado River water on nonfunctional turf. Nevada law prohibits using Colorado River water delivered by SNWA member agencies to irrigate nonfunctional grass on property not used exclusively as a single-family residence, beginning January 1, 2027.
Single-family yards, cemeteries, and recreational turf at schools and parks are outside the mandate. SNWA’s assigned-group watering schedule is a separate, year-round rule. It is already in the table above.
Southwest Florida Water Management District: Modified Phase III. A water-management district order, not a retail utility ordinance. It binds residents including private-well users to one assigned watering day per week, with reduced hours, through October 1, 2026.
Cities and counties may be stricter. This overlay is why a Tampa Bay homeowner can be on a one-day schedule even if their retailer has not published a separate stage.
Last digit 0–1 Monday; 2–3 Tuesday; 4–5 Wednesday; 6–7 Thursday; 8–9 and no address Friday. Hours 12:01 a.m.–4 a.m. or 8 p.m.–11:59 p.m. unless the city is stricter. Properties under one acre may use only one window.
Miami-Dade is not inside this district; it runs its own year-round two-day schedule under South Florida Water Management District alignment. A Tampa Bay address may be on the SWFWMD one-day order even if the city page is quieter than the district page. Check both.
Georgia Water Stewardship Act: statewide hours. Non-drought outdoor watering of ground cover, trees, shrubs or other plants is allowed only between 4 p.m. and 10 a.m. Drip, soaker, hand-watering with a shut-off, personal food gardens and several other uses are allowed at any hour.
A Level 1 drought declaration does not, by itself, add assigned days. Atlanta DWM’s Level 1 declaration did not add assigned days on top of those hours.
Outdoor restrictions also sit on top of rate design: tiered volumetric charges, drought surcharges, irrigation-only meters. HyrePlumber owns the meter, backflow, graywater and the rate-design page.
This page does not write that page. Denver’s Stage 1 drought charges and Austin’s conservation stage are recorded here only as the watering rule’s companion, not as a tariff study.
The Drought Monitor is context, not a watering day
The U.S. Drought Monitor map released September 3, 2026, data valid September 1, 2026, is the weekly classification used as context for this compilation. It is produced by the National Drought Mitigation Center, USDA, NOAA and NASA. HyreYard does not reproduce the copyrighted map as an asset. The official page is the source: droughtmonitor.unl.edu.
As of that map, 49.51% of the United States and Puerto Rico and 59.05% of the Lower 48 were in drought (D1–D4).
Drought.gov’s current-conditions summary for the same week: 103.2 million people in the U.S. affected; 43 states in moderate drought or worse. Category shares of U.S. area: D0 18.7%, D1 22.4%, D2 17.5%, D3 8.1%, D4 1.4%. D0 is abnormally dry, not drought.
The week’s narrative, not a HyreYard finding: flash drought expanded from Texas into Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and northern Mississippi; moderate drought expanded in northern California; monsoon rains improved parts of Arizona, Utah and western Colorado. That is the map. It is not LADWP Phase 2, and it is not Phoenix Stage 1.
HyreYard analysis: a measurable escalation lag: weeks between a Drought Monitor class change and a utility stage change: is a real research question and is why a change log is the moat. This launch pass has one dated entry. It cannot yet support an average lag. We will not invent one.
A landscape water budget is not a watering day either
EPA WaterSense’s landscape water budget is a site-specific method: plant type, plant water need, irrigation design, precipitation. The baseline comparison in the WaterSense home specification is cool-season turf on spray irrigation. The tool is a design budget, not a city schedule, and it does not tell you whether your address waters on Wednesday.
Several systems in this table already think in budgets rather than days. IRWD bills against a monthly landscape budget. Albuquerque publishes “Water by the Numbers” as a recommended frequency and does not assign weekdays.
Denver offers large irrigators a 2026 Water Budget Program as an alternative to two assigned days. Those are closer to WaterSense’s logic than an odd/even calendar is.
They are still not a substitute for the ordinance that applies to a spray head this week.
Once you know which days are yours, the sprinkler run time calculator converts a depth into minutes on the controller using a precipitation rate you measure yourself.
How to read your utility’s stage
Wholesale agencies, municipal retailers, investor-owned companies and special districts overlap. If the bill says a name that is not the city, that name’s conservation page is the rule. A neighbor on a different retailer can have a different day.
Ask: is this schedule in force every year, or only after a reservoir, aquifer or board declaration? Dallas’s twice-weekly cap is the former. San Antonio’s Stage 2 is the latter. Mixing them produces a false “drought restriction” story about a city still on its standing conservation ordinance.
Hand-held hose, drip, soaker, vegetable gardens, trees and new landscapes can be outside the spray schedule. They are not a license to run the rotor heads on the wrong day. Denver’s October 1, 2026 lawn shutdown still allows drip and hand-watering of trees.
SWFWMD’s Phase III binds well users in sixteen counties. California AB 1572 will bind CII and HOA common areas on a published phase-in. Georgia’s Stewardship Act already binds hours statewide. The city page may assume you know that.
Third-party “watering restrictions by city” sites disagreed with Phoenix’s own Drought Dashboard on whether Stage 2 assigned days were in force. The dashboard is the source. If two pages disagree, the utility page wins, and the retrieval date is the claim.
A restriction tells you when potable spray irrigation may run. It does not tell you what to plant, whether a turf rebate is open, or whether an HOA can block a conversion. Those are different pages.
Change log
The maintenance is the moat. A one-off scrape cannot reproduce a dated log. This log has one entry because this is the first compilation. A fake multi-year history would be a different kind of error.
2026-09-05
Launch compilationFirst public table: 25 retail water systems in 12 states, each read from the utility’s own conservation page (or the statute that page implements) on September 5, 2026.
Four regional/statewide overlays recorded separately (California AB 1572, Nevada nonfunctional-turf law, SWFWMD Modified Phase III, Georgia Water Stewardship Act). U.S. Drought Monitor map valid September 1, 2026 cited as context. No earlier change log exists because this is the first compilation.
Method and limitations
Each system’s current conservation, drought or watering-schedule page, retrieved September 5, 2026. Where the page implements a named ordinance or statute, that instrument is cited. News recaps are not used as the rule source when the utility page exists.
Primary class (seven-class taxonomy), current stage (utility’s own name), assigned days and hours, trigger, penalty if published, effective date, source URL, retrieval date. Overlays recorded separately. Notes capture exemptions that change the practical rule.
We did not scrape the Drought Monitor map into an image. We did not retrieve EPA SDWIS population-served for every PWSID. We did not read several thousand systems. We did not use HyreYard’s seven-state landscaper roster as a coverage claim.
3 rows carry a utility-published or primary-disclosure service population, labelled as such, summing to 3,075,000. Those figures are not a national coverage share of EPA’s more than 320 million people on community water systems (FY 2023).
“Not stated on the conservation page” means we did not find a dollar penalty or a population figure on the page we read. It does not mean the utility has none. It does not mean we guessed.
Provider-level rules are what we track. An HOA, a private well (except where a district order reaches wells: see SWFWMD), or a recycled-water meter can sit outside the potable spray schedule. Confirm.
Utility rules change with stages. A homeowner confirms with their provider. HyreYard does not landscape, irrigate, process rebates or enforce watering days.
Questions
Can I water my lawn today?
Do watering restrictions mean the same thing in every city?
Why doesn’t this page list my city?
Is this a national tracker?
How is this different from a turf rebate list?
Does an HOA have to follow the utility schedule?
What about nonfunctional turf bans?
How often is this table updated?
Written and audited by
HyreYard Research Desk
Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
We are a research desk, not a landscaping company. We read the statute, the municipal code, the water-district rule or the federal soil file ourselves, and we publish the figure with the document it came from and the date we retrieved it.
Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify. This desk is new.
The counts below are what we can already stand behind, and every one of them is counted from the studies on this site.
- 255
- source documents cited, each linked
- 112
- government (.gov) domains among them
- 258
- citations carrying a retrieval date
- 10
- research studies published
How this desk works
- Primary sources only. A rule comes from the statute, ordinance, board or agency that issued it, cited by section, with the URL and the retrieval date. We do not cite a blog that cites a code.
- Coverage is a number. A table titled to fifty states has fifty sourced rows. A table of cities is titled to the cities we actually read. Gaps are published as gaps.
- Company counts stay inside seven states. Texas, Arizona, Washington, California, Oregon, Florida and North Carolina. Texas is the largest roster on the weakest evidence, a self-reported NAICS sales-tax permit, because Texas licenses no landscaper. National claims rest on federal or state agency data, never on our counts.
- Fact, calculation, analysis and recommendation stay labeled. "According to…" is a source. "HyreYard analyzed… and calculated…" is ours. "This suggests…" is interpretation. We do not present our reading as something the source stated.
- We do not landscape, irrigate, plant, cut trees or pull permits, and we take no payment for placement, ranking or a favorable mention. Nobody buys a position on this site.
Data as of Rules retrieved September 5, 2026. U.S. Drought Monitor map valid September 1, 2026, released September 3, 2026. Authorship on this site is organizational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold.
Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.
Sources & retrieval dates
If the restriction is the reason the lawn is coming out
Look up the turf-rebate rate your water utility is actually paying, type the square feet, and apply the cap. HyreYard does not process rebates and does not landscape the yard.
Not legal advice and not a substitute for the utility’s current conservation page. Outdoor watering rules change with drought stages, board declarations and seasonal calendars. A homeowner confirms the current stage with their water provider.
HyreYard does not landscape, irrigate, enforce watering days or process rebates. Research by the HyreYard Research Desk. Published September 5, 2026. Last verified September 5, 2026. Next review weekly through October 2026.