Tap Water quality in Poland

What is the quality of the tap water in Poland? Is it safe to drink right from the faucet?

Depends on location. I would not try in in Warsaw.

It depends a lot on where you are. In Western Poland I just use a Britta filter but don't worry about boiling it. In some parts boiling might be called for.

We will be in Warsaw and Mragowo.

It won't kill you, but bottled water is cheap.

You can drink it, it won't make you ill, however the pipes are sometimes rusty and most people prefer to drink bottled water. As Roger says, it is very cheap.

Depending on if any of those old pipes are lead pipes.
If they are, they very well could eventually kill you with low levels of lead exposer over time.

Warsaw derives most of it's water supply from the Vistula river and the river is well a sewer to an extent - I wouldn't drink tap water in Warsaw

Mrągowo is a different case - it is small and it lies in a clean area and on a lake (or oven two lakes)

When in Warsaw, I always buy bottled water, to make myself a tea or a coffee.
I have tried to make a tea with Warsaw' tap water once, and had to pour it down the sink, tasted horrible.

There has been a huge ongoing project to improve the water system in Warsaw.- with almost 200m euro of it paid by the EU i.e. 200 euros per household.

I drink the tap water whenever I am there and it is fine.

It's OK for tea or coffee (unless you're in one certain part of town, and in any case they're changing the system there at the moment and the problematic source doesn't supply any hotels, so not relevant to the OP). Most people use bottled for drinking (or go to the public oligocene wells) and tap water for cooking.

We live on the outskirts of town and have our own oligocene well - it's basically a private supply of mineral water. Very hard water, high in calcium, but clean.

you probably have higher tolerance for 'syfy i paksudztwa' from the river water - you cannot filter them out completely, so good luck for you drinking tap water in the long perspective

You're wrong, as usual. Most water in Warsaw is fine to use in cooking, water in most countries is fine to use when boiled.


Read the bit about mineral water from oligocene wells before commenting.

Tap water is safe to drink practically anywhere in Poland, except in a handful of small rural communities where shallow private wells have been contaminated by agricultural activity, usually nitrate-containing fertilizers.


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you of course mean by it that it will make you sick within hours or kill you outright - so yes in that sense it is safe

in the long run? - in the long run you are making a filter for chemicals from river water of yourself - thanks I will stay away - i lived in a town were water was partly from Odra river and partrly from Nysa Kłodzka river - and no it did not taste good at all (so was tap water in Wrocław when I studied there)

is tapwater generally chlorinated?

that would mean showering is a problem.

Why would showering be a problem?

No it wouldn't mean that.

How about quality in Krakow ?

Kraków has actually very good water quality - the Kraków tap water comes from the Dobczyce reservoir on (the Raba if I recall correctly) river that flows from the mountains - the reservoir is restricted from any other use (no bathing and probably even no angling)

Krakow water is perfectly fine to drink, EU water plant guarantees that.


Little Lead piping left in the EU, its more of a problem in the USA.

Don't worry about water quality in Poland. In some areas it's not particularly tasty, and in some old residences the pipes might contaminate it to some extent, but it is all safe to cook with and wash in. Drink bottled water and enjoy the country.

actually it's in some big cities mostly - as some big cities rely on water from major rivers - and you know major rivers are a bit of a sewage - smaller places especially not on major rivers rely on underground aquifers sometimes quite deep

My mother-in-law lives around the corner from a Hoop soft drinks factory. The water in her well is the same as in Hoop Arctic bottled water. Very nice, too.

[quote=Alltimegreat1Is it safe to drink right from the faucet?[/quote]and how do you think? Is it safe? ;)

It may be not tasty in Warsaw but It meets SANEPID standards. When do not meet, somewhere in a smal village there is a warning in radio and newspaper. Mrągowo is not a small village. We just not drink tap water right from the faucet because boiled tap water or mineral water from Carrefour is more tastier ;) Same way we don't drink disgusting mix tea and milk bleee

The mains water in Warsaw is the opposite of 'tasty' (who would want 'tasty' water anyway), especially from someone used to drinking water straight from the hills of Yorkshire. It won't cause short term problems though - long term maybe, but you won't get a stomach upset from it.

I believe the water in Poland is unsafe, Poland government t do not care much about the quality of the water,knowing that most of the rivers in Poland are contaminated and dirty. Some of the people reported that they are feeling lazy and not comfortable. It won't be a big wonder if there are some low Mercury contamination.

In many parts of Poland tap water tastes like sh*t.
But it won't make you sick.
I would recommend drinking bottled water, but if you are desperate, do not be afraid of a Polish tap.

Yeah - and what to do with the tons of plastic...? Sounds like solving a problem with a bigger one... Not sure all the hype about lead is justified...

In Poznan there was a good poster recently by the municipal water company: "Nie daj się nabić w butelkę - pij wodę z kranu!"

Tell us more about your invaluable experience with tap water in Poland, please.


More and more experts claim that bottled water isn`t better than tap water, in some cases of cheap spring water it is even worse.

Big city councils advertise their tap water as the better solution:

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