Tap water in Hong Kong is safe to drink, according to the Hong Kong government’s Water Supplies Department (WSD), which is involved in testing and treating the city’s water supply. The WSD supplies 99.99% of Hong Kong’s population.
Approximately 70–80% of Hong Kong’s raw water supply is sourced from Dongjiang in Guangdong province, whilst the remaining 20–30% is collected locally from rainfall in the city’s multiple reservoirs.
Since 2017, the WSD has adopted the World Health Organisation’s Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality as the Hong Kong Drinking Water Standards (HKDWS), ensuring that Hong Kong’s water supply is treated for physical, chemical, bacteriological, biological, and radiological analysis.
In 2023 alone, the department made 290,000 water-quality tests to track any irregularities in the water that Hong Kongers drink every day.
The city operates 20 water-treatment works and one desalination plant to continuously treat drinking water for everyone in the city.
