Southern Water Contact Number — Phone, 24/7 Emergency Line, Email & Address

Southern Water contact number

The Southern Water contact number for bills, accounts and general enquiries is 0330 303 0277, open Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm and closed at weekends and on bank holidays. As an 0330 number it is charged at the standard UK local rate and is usually included in inclusive minutes bundles on mobile and landline plans, so most customers pay nothing extra to ring it. If your query is about a leak, no water or any other operational emergency, use the 24/7 line on 0330 303 0368 instead.

Southern Water supplies drinking water to roughly 2.5 million people in Kent, East Sussex, parts of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, and runs the wastewater network for more than 4.7 million people across the same broad region. A few pockets receive their drinking water from another company while still using Southern Water for sewerage — most notably Portsmouth and most of South Hampshire, served by Portsmouth Water, and East Dorset and parts of Hampshire served by Bournemouth Water. The top of your bill names both companies, so check it before you dial.

For wider context on the supplier — supply area, smart meters, the Essentials Tariff and recent Ofwat scrutiny — see our full Southern Water guide. The numbers below cover every published line; pick the right queue first time and you will normally reach an advisor within a few minutes.

Source: Southern Water — contact us, verified June 2026. Calls to 0330 numbers cost the same as a normal landline call; calls to 0800 numbers are free from any UK landline or mobile.

Before you dial, have your account number and full postcode ready — the account number is printed at the top of your most recent bill and on any direct debit confirmation letter. Taking 30 seconds to find these details first shaves several minutes off the identity check at the start of the call. If you are calling about a meter reading, write down the black digits on the dial face before ringing so you can quote them straight away.

Southern Water 24/7 emergency number

The Southern Water emergency number is 0330 303 0368, answered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week including bank holidays. Use it for burst mains, visible leaks in the street, no water at the tap, low pressure affecting a whole area, blocked public sewers and sewer flooding inside or outside a property. The same number doubles as the general water and wastewater enquiry line during the day, so during a major incident a single queue handles every category of report.

You do not need to be a Southern Water customer to report a problem on the public network. If you spot water bubbling up through the road, a sinkhole forming, or pressure dropping across a whole street, ring 0330 303 0368 even if you live outside the supply area — Southern Water will route the report onwards if the asset turns out to belong to another company. Reporting early is the single best thing the public can do to help keep Ofwat's 5-yearly leakage targets on track.

Before calling, do a 30-second check to see whose responsibility the issue is. Southern Water owns the public mains up to the boundary of your property, plus the public sewer; anything beyond the outside stop tap — pipes under your garden, the cold-water tank in the loft, internal plumbing, taps and toilets — is the homeowner's responsibility and a job for a plumber, not the water company. If you are not sure where the boundary lies, our guide on what to do when there's no water in the house walks through the diagnostic steps.

Speak to a human at Southern Water

When you ring 0330 303 0277 the automated menu asks you to say why you are calling, then routes you to the right team. Stating the reason in plain English ("billing", "moving home", "meter reading", "complaint") is the quickest route to a human; if the system does not pick up the word, it falls back to a five-option keypad menu. The fastest queue is usually billing — moving home and meter reading sometimes loop through extra sub-options.

Average wait times are longest on Monday mornings and the day after a bank holiday, when the queue is full of customers who could not get through over the weekend. If your query is not urgent, try ringing mid-morning Tuesday to Thursday, or send a WhatsApp message to +44 7894 976261 — written replies usually land within a few hours during office hours and avoid the phone queue entirely.

1. Option 1 — payments and balance: routes to the automated payment system. Have your payment reference number ready.
2. Option 2 — bills and water usage: billing queries, payment difficulty or consumption questions, then transfer to an advisor.
3. Option 3 — moving home or changing account details: four sub-options for new customers, moving in, moving out and closing an account.
4. Option 4 — report a problem: water-supply or wastewater issues. For genuine emergencies, hang up and use 0330 303 0368 instead.
5. Option 5 — meter: transfers directly to a human advisor for meter enquiries and readings.

Help with paying your Southern Water bill

If you are struggling to pay your water bill, ring the Southern Water Affordability Team free on 0800 027 0363, Monday to Friday during office hours, rather than letting arrears build up. Most schemes are decided over a single phone call and are confidential — the advisor will ask about your household income, housing costs and the number of people in the property before recommending the right support. Applying early is always cheaper than waiting for a final reminder.

Four core schemes cover most situations: the Essentials Tariff is Southern Water's own social tariff, WaterSure is the national statutory cap, Water Direct handles deductions from benefits and NewStart is a debt-matching scheme for customers in long-term difficulty. The right one depends on whether you are metered, on benefits and how high your essential water use is.

Priority Services Register

Separately from the affordability schemes, the Priority Services Register is a free, opt-in list for customers who need extra practical help during a supply interruption — bottled-water deliveries to the door, advance warning of works, large-print or braille bills, a password scheme for doorstep visits and nominated-account access so a relative or carer can ring on your behalf. Sign-up is free and open to anyone with a relevant need, not only those on benefits.

Register over the phone on 0800 027 0800, online through the Priority Services form on southernwater.co.uk, or by asking a family member or carer to do it for you. Eligibility includes anyone reliant on dialysis or other electrically-powered medical equipment, households with a baby under 12 months or someone over 65 living alone, customers who are blind, partially sighted, deaf or hard of hearing, and anyone who would struggle to read a meter, understand a bill or answer the door without help.

Telling Southern Water you are moving home

You should tell Southern Water about a move up to 30 days before the move date and as soon as possible after move-in day — sooner risks the change being missed, later means you could be charged for water used by the new occupants. The fastest route is the Moving Home form on southernwater.co.uk, but you can also handle it by phone on 0330 303 0277 during normal opening hours.

Have three pieces of information ready: your new full address, your move-out date, and — if you are on a meter — a final reading taken on the day you leave. Without the closing reading, Southern Water will estimate your final bill against historical use, which often produces a higher figure than the meter actually shows. Most homes in the South East are metered under the Universal Metering Programme, so plan to take a photo of the meter face on move-out day.

If your new home is also in the Southern Water area, your account simply follows you and no closing bill is issued. Moving outside the region means closure of your Southern Water account and a new account with the regional company that serves your destination postcode — our UK water suppliers directory lists the contact number for every regional monopoly, and our Southern Water moving home guide walks through the full process step by step.

Other ways to contact Southern Water

If you would rather not sit on the phone, Southern Water offers a full set of digital channels. Most routine tasks — submitting a meter reading, paying a bill, updating your details, telling Southern Water you are moving home — can be completed without speaking to an advisor through the My Account portal on southernwater.co.uk, which is open 24 hours a day.

For account questions outside opening hours, the live chat widget and the WhatsApp service on +44 7894 976261 are usually quicker than the phone. Social channels (X / Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn) are best for short, non-urgent questions and outage updates — anything involving a leak, burst pipe, no supply or sewer flooding should always go through the 24/7 emergency line on 0330 303 0368, never via social media or email.

Southern Water postal address

For routine correspondence — cheques, written complaints, account queries — write to the customer care PO Box in Darlington. Legal documents, Subject Access Requests and anything addressed to the company secretary should instead go to the registered office in Worthing. Always include your account number, the supply postcode and a daytime phone number so the customer team can follow up if they need more information.

How to complain to Southern Water

Southern Water follows the three-stage complaints process required of every English water company by Ofwat and the Consumer Council for Water. The company aims to send a substantive first reply within 10 working days, and the vast majority of complaints are resolved at the first stage with a single phone call or a message through the Customer Care contact form.

Step 1 — Raise the issue. Ring 0330 303 0277 Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm, or send the complaint through the Customer Care contact form on southernwater.co.uk. Quote your account number, the property postcode and a clear description of what went wrong and the outcome you would like. Keep a note of the date you complained and the name of the advisor for stage 2.

Step 2 — Request a formal review. If the first response does not resolve the problem, ask in writing for the complaint to be escalated to a Customer Relations Manager at the Darlington PO Box. Southern Water has another stage to come back with a final answer; if it does not, you can request a deadlock letter confirming the case is closed at the company's end.

Step 3 — Escalate externally. Once you hold a deadlock letter, or eight weeks have passed since you first complained, the Consumer Council for Water (CCW) will review your case for free. For issues CCW cannot resolve, the final route is the Water Redress Scheme (WATRS), an independent adjudicator whose decision is legally binding on Southern Water but not on you — you keep the right to reject it and go to court.

If your complaint is really about the size of your bill rather than the service you received, check first whether you are eligible for support. Our WaterSure scheme guide explains the national cap available to low-income metered households, and the UK water rates guide shows how the bill is calculated so you can spot a charge that looks wrong.

Southern Water contact FAQ

Useful Southern Water and UK water guides

If you came looking for a phone number and now want to dig further, our other Southern Water and UK water guides cover bills, metering, the schemes that cap charges for low-income households and the practical steps to take when something goes wrong. The starting point is the Southern Water supplier overview, which links to the rest of the cluster.

• Southern Water: contact, supply area, bills & meters — coverage area, tariffs and how the supplier ranks against the rest of the UK water market ;
• Moving home with Southern Water — the full process for closing and opening an account around a move date ;
• Pay your Southern Water bill — Direct Debit, card, Post Office and Payment Card options ;
• All UK water suppliers — find the right water company for your postcode and compare contact numbers across the regional monopolies ;
• UK water bills explained — average costs, metering rules and the regulators that set what you can be charged ;
• How to read your water meter — step-by-step guide so you can quote the right figure when you ring customer services ;
• WaterSure scheme — national cap on metered bills for low-income households with high essential use ;
• No water in the house? What to check first — whose pipework is whose, and the order in which to ring Southern Water versus a plumber.