PFAS in UK Water: What Is Known
PFAS results are not published by location
This is the honest answer to "is there PFAS in my water?" in the UK: nobody can tell you from public data. That is not because it goes untested.
Water companies in England and Wales are required to monitor PFAS. Since March 2025 the Drinking Water Inspectorate has required them to test for a wider range of PFAS and update their risk assessments against a guideline of 0.1 µg/L, which applies both to individual PFAS compounds and to the combined sum-of figure. Those results go to the regulator. They are not released per supply zone or per postcode.
We did not take that on trust. In July 2026 we asked the Inspectorate for the results under the Environmental Information Regulations, and the request was refused on cost grounds. Read what we asked and what they said.
The monitoring that is public comes from the Environment Agency, and it covers rivers and groundwater rather than treated tap water. We checked its sampling points near the cities below: they do not record PFAS.
So this page will not show you a number for your area, because no honest source can. If that changes we will publish it here.
What is actually settled
- No statutory limit.There are no statutory standards for PFAS in drinking water in England and Wales. The 0.1 µg/L figure is the regulator's guideline, not a legal limit.
- It is being tested. Since March 2025 water companies must monitor a wider range of PFAS and update their risk assessments accordingly.
- Publication is the gap, not testing. The results exist at the regulator. What is missing is a public dataset that lets you look up your own area.
- Filtering does not depend on any of this. Reverse osmosis removes PFAS regardless of what the data says. Standard jug filters do not.
Environment Agency monitoring by city
What the public river and groundwater monitoring near each city shows. This is not a reading of the tap water supplied there.