Homes Without Plumbing: How Many US Households Lack Running Water or a Full Bathroom
The short answer
About 392,000 occupied US homes lack complete plumbing: 336,000 have no hot and cold piped water, 135,000 have no full bathroom and 122,000 share a bathroom with another household, according to the 2023 American Housing Survey. Homes below the poverty line are 11 times as likely to lack plumbing as the highest-income homes, and homes outside metro areas 2.3 times as likely as metro homes. The rural-urban plumbing gap echoes a much longer story, one traced in our timeline on the history of indoor plumbing.
The short answer, expanded
HUD classifies a home as having severely inadequate plumbing if it lacks hot or cold piped water, lacks a full bathroom, or shares a bathroom with people outside the household. The American Housing Survey applies that test to every sampled home. The counts are small against 133 million homes, but they describe hundreds of thousands of households living without a basic utility most Americans take for granted.
| Plumbing deficiency (occupied homes) | Homes | ± (90%) |
|---|---|---|
| Severely inadequate plumbing, any of the below | 392,000 | 77,000 |
| No hot and cold piped water | 336,000 | 72,000 |
| No full bathroom | 135,000 | 46,000 |
| Bathroom shared with another household | 122,000 | 46,000 |
| No kitchen sink (a separate HUD kitchen criterion) | 250,000 | 60,000 |
| All homes classed severely inadequate, any reason | 1,652,000 | 150,000 |
Source: Census Bureau, AHS 2023 (published estimate for severely inadequate plumbing 392,000 ±77,000); component counts calculated by The Plumbing Brief from the PUF. Components overlap.
The evidence
- Occupied homes with severely inadequate plumbing: 392,000 (±77,000), 0.3 percent. Source: AHS 2023.
- Without hot and cold piped water: 336,000 (±72,000). Source: AHS 2023.
- Below the poverty line: 1.1 percent (±0.3); at 400 percent of poverty or more: 0.1 percent. Source: calculated from AHS 2023 PUF.
- Outside metro areas: 0.6 percent; inside: 0.2 percent. Source: calculated from AHS 2023 PUF.
- Of homes lacking plumbing, 110,000 are outside metro areas, though they hold only 14 percent of homes. Source: calculated from AHS 2023 PUF.
- No piped water, homes on their own well: 0.6 percent; on public systems: 0.2 percent. Source: calculated from AHS 2023 PUF.
- Renters: 0.5 percent; owners: 0.2 percent. Source: calculated from AHS 2023 PUF.
- Mobile homes: 0.3 percent; detached houses: 0.3 percent. Source: calculated from AHS 2023 PUF.
By region, building and age
| Group | Severely inadequate plumbing | ± | Homes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single-family detached | 0.3% | 0.1 | 238,000 |
| Single-family attached | 0.1% | 0.1 | 4,000 |
| 2 to 4 units | 0.2% | 0.1 | 15,000 |
| 5 or more units | 0.5% | 0.2 | 106,000 |
| Mobile home | 0.3% | 0.2 | 23,000 |
| Before 1940 | 0.6% | 0.2 | 105,000 |
| 1940 to 1959 | 0.4% | 0.2 | 79,000 |
| 1960 to 1979 | 0.3% | 0.1 | 86,000 |
| 1980 to 1999 | 0.2% | 0.1 | 66,000 |
| 2000 or later | 0.2% | 0.1 | 57,000 |
| New England | 0.1% | 0.0 | 4,000 |
| Middle Atlantic | 0.5% | 0.2 | 83,000 |
| East North Central | 0.3% | 0.2 | 55,000 |
| West North Central | 0.5% | 0.3 | 46,000 |
| South Atlantic | 0.1% | 0.1 | 29,000 |
| East South Central | 0.3% | 0.2 | 23,000 |
| West South Central | 0.4% | 0.2 | 70,000 |
| Mountain | 0.3% | 0.3 | 34,000 |
| Pacific | 0.2% | 0.1 | 48,000 |
Source: calculated by The Plumbing Brief from the AHS 2023 PUF. At these small rates, many group estimates rest on few sampled homes; differences of a few tenths of a point are not reliable.
What the numbers imply
Plumbing poverty is rural and low-income
Formula. Severely inadequate plumbing rate by poverty band and metro status.
Calculation. Below poverty 1.1 percent against 0.1 percent at four times the poverty line; outside metros 0.6 against 0.2 inside.
Finding. Nearly half of the homes lacking plumbing, 189,000, are below the poverty line. The problem is concentrated where public water systems do not reach and incomes are lowest.
Limitations. The AHS samples occupied housing units. People with no fixed home, and some tribal areas with very small samples, are poorly covered, so the true count of people without running water is likely higher than these figures suggest.
Most homes without water are not on any system
Formula. No-piped-water rate by water source.
Calculation. Individual wells 0.6 percent; public or private systems 0.2 percent; other sources (springs, cisterns, hauled water) 2.9 percent with a very wide margin.
Finding. Homes that rely on springs, cisterns or hauled water are the most likely to lack piped hot and cold water, which is consistent with the absence of a pressurised supply.
Limitations. The other-source group is tiny in the sample (about 353,000 homes), so its rate has a margin larger than the estimate itself.
Figures worth quoting
- 392,000 US homes lack complete plumbing (AHS 2023).
- 336,000 homes have no hot and cold piped water.
- Homes below the poverty line lack plumbing at 1.1 percent, against 0.1 percent for the highest-income homes.
Download the data
Rates with margins, estimates and bases. Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Attribution: The Plumbing Brief.
Homes lacking complete plumbing by income, tenure, region, building type and water source (AHS 2023) (CSV)
How this report was built
Methodology
Source. 2023 American Housing Survey National Public Use File v1.1, downloaded from the Census Bureau on 4 October 2026.
Universe. All occupied housing units.
Items used. HOTWATER (7 = no hot and cold running water), BATHROOMS (07 to 13 = no full bathroom), BATHEXCLU (bathroom shared), KITCHSINK, ADEQUACY, with PERPOVLVL, TENURE, DIVISION, BLD, OMB13CBSA, YRBUILT and WATSOURCE as breakdowns. The plumbing deficiency definition follows HUD’s severely inadequate plumbing criterion as specified in the Census Bureau’s table specification.
Estimation. Weighted with the PUF final weight (WEIGHT) and its 160 replicate weights. Margins of error are 90 percent, from successive difference replication (variance = 4/160 × Σ(replicate − full)²), the method that reproduces the Census Bureau’s published margins exactly. National totals quoted in this report match the Bureau’s published Table Creator estimates.
Derived figures. All breakdowns by metro, region, tenure, income and housing type are calculated by The Plumbing Brief from the public use file.
Retrieval date. 4 October 2026.
Data limitations
- Self-reported by households. Problems a household did not notice or recall are not counted.
- The 2023 AHS is one cross-section. It shows differences between places and groups, not change over time.
- Metro areas use 2013 OMB delineations as coded on the PUF, which differ slightly from current metro boundaries.
- Where two margins of error overlap, the difference between the groups should not be treated as established.
- At a rate of 0.3 percent, every breakdown rests on a small number of sampled homes. Relative margins are large.
- The American Community Survey reports a different measure (lacking complete plumbing facilities) with a larger sample; its estimates are not used here because the Census API now requires a key this publication has not registered.
- Vacant homes and homeless households are outside the universe.
Source quality ranking
Tier 1. US Census Bureau and HUD, American Housing Survey 2023, National Public Use File v1.1; AHS 2023 Table Specifications and PUF Estimates for User Verification; AHS 2023 Definitions.
Tier 2. None used. Tier 3. None used.
Briefing note
About 392,000 occupied US homes lack complete plumbing, according to the 2023 American Housing Survey, including 336,000 with no hot and cold piped water. An analysis by The Plumbing Brief found the problem concentrated among low-income and rural households: 1.1 percent of homes below the poverty line lack complete plumbing against 0.1 percent of the highest-income homes, and 0.6 percent of homes outside metro areas against 0.2 percent inside them.
How reporters could frame this
- Hundreds of thousands of US homes still lack running water
- Plumbing poverty: the homes without a full bathroom
- Rural and poor: who lives without complete plumbing
Related questions
How many US homes don’t have plumbing? About 392,000 occupied homes have severely inadequate plumbing (AHS 2023).
How many homes have no running water? About 336,000 occupied homes lack hot and cold piped water.
Who is most likely to lack plumbing? Low-income and rural households.
What counts as inadequate plumbing? Lacking hot or cold piped water, lacking a full bathroom, or sharing a bathroom with non-household members (HUD definition).
Is this the same as the Census ACS figure? No. The ACS uses a different question and a larger sample; the two should not be combined.
How to cite this report
The Plumbing Brief, “Homes Without Plumbing: How Many US Households Lack Running Water or a Full Bathroom”, https://theplumbingbrief.com/homes-without-plumbing/, accessed [date].
Last reviewed: 2026-10-04.
