Tap Fee
A tap fee, also called a connection fee, is the charge a utility provider levies to physically connect a property to an existing water or sewer main and to buy the system capacity that connection will consume.
What a tap fee covers
The fee generally covers the physical connection to the main, the meter, and the share of existing system capacity the new connection consumes. Fees are commonly scaled to connection size or meter size, so a large commercial connection costs substantially more than a single-family one. Water and sewer are typically charged separately, and a project needing both pays both.
What it does not cover
A tap fee assumes there is a main to tap into. If the nearest main is hundreds of feet away, extending it is a separate cost borne by the developer, often the largest single offsite expense in a project. Impact fees for broader infrastructure are separate again. Confusing these three — connection, extension, and impact — is a common source of underwriting error, because only the first is a published schedule.
Estimating connection cost early
Because line extension cost scales with distance, knowing how far a parcel sits from an existing main is the practical input to a first-pass estimate. Paxiv maps water and sewer infrastructure per parcel from municipal GIS, including line diameters where the source publishes them, so distance to the nearest servable main can be judged during screening rather than after an engineer is engaged.
Paxiv by the numbers
| Parcel records | 150M+ Parcel records in the nationwide serving table, covering residential, commercial, agricultural, and vacant land. |
|---|---|
| State coverage | All 50 states Every U.S. state is queryable on every tier, including the free one — coverage is not a paid upgrade. |
| City infrastructure coverage | Water, sewer, and storm — mapped per parcel Sourced from municipal GIS, city by city rather than one national feed — the city-level layer most nationwide parcel tools do not carry at all. |
| Free tier | $0, no card, no time limit Includes 15 parcel lookups, 3 zoning reports, 5 AI search credits, 3 skip traces, and 1 deal room. |
| Transaction fees | Zero Paxiv is subscription software, not a brokerage. It takes no commission and never participates in a deal. |
Where this data comes from
Paxiv's parcel, ownership, and zoning records link back to the originating county assessor, county recorder, or municipal zoning code, with flood data from FEMA's National Flood Hazard Layer and geographic reference data from the U.S. Census Bureau — so every figure can be checked against its authoritative source rather than taken on faith.
- County assessor and recorder offices — Parcel boundaries, ownership of record, assessed values, and transaction history. Every record in Paxiv links back to the originating county office for one-click verification.
- City and county zoning ordinances — Zoning classification per parcel, linked to the municipality's own published zoning code so the underlying ordinance can be read directly.
- FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer — Flood zone, Special Flood Hazard Area status, and base flood elevation, resolved by point-in-polygon lookup against FEMA's own published layer.
- U.S. Census Bureau — Census tract containment via the Bureau's official geocoder, plus TIGER/Line geographic reference files.
Frequently asked questions
What is a tap fee?
A tap fee is the charge a utility levies to connect a property to an existing water or sewer main, covering the physical connection, the meter, and the system capacity that connection consumes.
How much are tap fees?
They vary widely by jurisdiction and connection size, from roughly a thousand dollars for a small residential connection to tens of thousands for a large commercial one. Water and sewer are usually charged separately.
Is a tap fee the same as an impact fee?
No. A tap fee buys the physical connection and the capacity it uses. An impact fee funds broader system-wide infrastructure expansion and often covers services beyond utilities. A project can owe both, plus any line extension cost.