Well water testing by state: free programs, certified labs and the rules

For a well water test near you, there are three places to look, in this order. The card for your state above links each one to the official page.

• Your state’s certified lab list. 48 states publish one. Certification matters for the health results — bacteria, nitrate, arsenic, lead — where the point is to detect small amounts reliably. Arkansas and North Dakota have no official state list, and Wyoming’s link is the EPA’s regional list because the state runs no certification program of its own.
• A free program, if you qualify. We list a program as free only when its own page says it costs nothing, and we show its limit next to it — region, income, invitation, funding. Anything with a price, or marked paid, goes under “low-cost and other options” instead.
• Your county health department. Many run their own testing or know who does; county programs weren’t surveyed state by state here, so a phone call can turn up an option this page doesn’t list.

Before you order, check which contaminants turned up in your county’s wells so the test covers them, and see what a lab panel costs.

• 19 states have a standing free program; 5 are open statewide. The statewide ones: Colorado (PFAS only; while supplies last), Delaware, Idaho (while funding lasts; no bacteria test), New Mexico (screening only — not a certified-lab test) and South Carolina (PFAS only; apply for an assessment). Limited to some areas, incomes or households: Alabama, California, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Washington and Wisconsin.
• 8 states without a free program list a paid or low-cost option. Arkansas ($17 per sample), Florida (Discretionary — not available on request), Indiana ($10–$20 per test, plus shipping), Mississippi ($10 + processing fee), Missouri ($10 handling fee), Montana (Paid — price depends on the package), Texas ($15 per sample, at scheduled screenings) and Virginia ($70 per kit, at scheduled clinics).
• 4 states require a test at sale by state law: Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island. Westchester County, New York requires one by county law; some Massachusetts towns do too; New Hampshire sellers must disclose the date of the last test, and Connecticut owners must point buyers to the state’s testing material.
• 13 states require a new well to be tested before or soon after it is used: Connecticut, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin. Several more leave it to counties — in Florida, twelve county health departments require it.
• 3 states require landlords to test: Maine, Maryland and New Jersey. California requires it inside the area of a free state-funded program, and Oregon’s landlord testing law is enacted but not yet in force — it starts January 1, 2027.
• 32 states have no state requirement to test a household well at sale, after construction or for a rental — though some of their counties or towns do, and lenders often ask for a test at purchase anyway.

Select a state name to open its card above with the program details, recommended tests and the rule text behind each line.

Colours: free program open statewide (green), free program, limited (area, income or eligibility) (amber), none (plain).

Private wells aren’t covered by the federal drinking-water rules that apply to public systems, so any duty to test comes from state or local law. These are the requirements the verification found, in the rules’ own terms. County and town rules were not surveyed everywhere, so a county listed here is an example, not the full list.

At sale

New wells

Rentals

Before occupancy

Disclosure, not a test

Other cases

The CDC recommends testing a private well at least once a year for total coliform bacteria, nitrates, total dissolved solids and pH. Many states say more. New Jersey, for example, recommends total coliform, nitrates and pH at least every year; PFAS, lead, VOCs, SOCs, iron and manganese at least every five years; and arsenic, mercury, gross alpha and uranium at least once. Your state’s card shows what its agency recommends, with the source text.

Test sooner after flooding, after work on the well or pump, or when the water changes in taste, smell or colour. Once the report arrives, the water test interpreter reads it line by line against the EPA limits, and how to test well water covers taking a sample the lab can trust.

Official sources only. Every value comes from a state statute, a state regulation or a state agency’s own page — plus named county programs, and county-hosted copies where the state’s own link is broken. Each value is backed by verbatim quotes from its source, shown under “View the rule text” in the state card.

Independently verified. After the research pass, a second pass re-fetched every cited source, matched each quote against the live text and corrected what didn’t hold up, on September 26, 2026. The corrections changed real answers: a free program that turned out to cost money moved to low-cost, a program whose official page never says “free” now reads “cost not stated”, a radon kit offer that was a time-limited study was removed, and Oregon’s landlord testing law is labelled upcoming because it isn’t in force until 2027.

Free versus low-cost. A program is free only if its cost reads as free; anything with a price, “paid” or “not free” is listed as low-cost, and a program with no stated cost is listed as “cost not stated”. “Open statewide” means any private-well owner in the state can apply, even when supplies or funding are limited or the test covers one contaminant.

Limits. County programs were not surveyed exhaustively, so your county may offer testing this page doesn’t list. Programs change and funding ends — check the program’s own page before you rely on it. Where the source is dated (a fee, a program year, a lab list), the card shows the date. This is a research summary, not legal advice: the agency that runs the program or enforces the rule has the final word.

The full table — every state’s programs with their limits, lab list, recommendations, legal triggers and source URLs — is free to download and reuse under CC BY 4.0: credit Well Water Fixes with a link to this page. The drilling rules — permits, drillers and septic setbacks — are on well drilling permits by state.

Download the CSV (80 KB)