How Much Does It Cost To Flush Your Toilet? It Depends On Your MN City

ST. PAUL, MN — Every time a Minnesotan flushes the toilet, they pay twice: once for the water that fills the tank and again for the sewer system that carries it away. How much that adds up to depends heavily on where you live.

The cost of a single flush in Minnesota cities can be determined using each city's 2026 residential water and sewer rates.

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The math assumes a 1.6-gallon toilet, the federal maximum for new toilets since 1994, and uses each city's lowest residential usage tier. Fixed charges that homeowners pay regardless of use are not included.

The results ranged from about 3 cents per flush in Duluth to about 1 cent in Woodbury.

What a flush costs (1.6-gallon toilet, 2026 rates)

Duluth: 3.1 cents
West St. Paul: 2.7 cents
St. Paul: 2.5 cents
Mahtomedi: 2.4 cents
Minneapolis: 2.1 cents
Arden Hills: 1.8 cents
Edina: 1.8 cents
Bloomington: 1.8 cents
Plymouth: 1.3 cents
Woodbury: 1 cent

In Duluth, residential customers pay $6.02 per 100 cubic feet of water, plus a 98-cent infrastructure surcharge, and $7.65 per 100 cubic feet for sewer. One hundred cubic feet equals 748 gallons.

Woodbury lands at the bottom because its city sewer charge is a flat $36.10 per quarter. The only usage-based sewer charge is the Metropolitan Council's regional treatment fee, $4.06 per 1,000 gallons, and it applies only after a household's first 8,000 gallons in its winter quarter.

Older toilets cost more

Toilets installed before 1994 can use 3.5 gallons or more per flush. At that rate, a single flush costs about 6.9 cents in Duluth and 5.9 cents in West St. Paul.

Those pennies add up. A household flushing a 1.6-gallon toilet 30 times a day uses about 1,440 gallons a month, which works out to roughly $28 a month in Duluth, $24 in West St. Paul and $9 in Woodbury.

Why winter flushes cost the most

In many metro cities, including St. Paul, West St. Paul, Minneapolis, Edina, Woodbury and Arden Hills, sewer charges for single-family homes are capped based on how much water a household uses in winter. The idea is that winter water goes down the drain, while summer water often ends up on lawns and gardens.

That means the full per-flush cost applies during the winter months. For the rest of the year, once a household is past its winter level, an extra flush often costs only the water portion.

In West St. Paul, for example, a flush costs about 2.7 cents in winter but about 1.1 cents once sewer charges hit their cap. Cutting water use from January through March can lower sewer bills for the entire year.

Fixed charges make up a large share of many bills

In West St. Paul, single-family homes pay a $40.08 quarterly sewer demand charge, a $17.09 quarterly storm sewer charge and a minimum sewer usage charge of $22.05 per quarter, even with little or no water use.

Across the Twin Cities, the typical single-family home paid $35.58 a month for sewer service in 2025, according to the Metropolitan Council's latest Community Wastewater Costs report. Monthly costs ranged from about $13 in Mendota to about $90 in Independence.