Three in four drink Arisu ... satisfaction tops 80% for the first time

[Financial News] Three out of four Seoul residents were found to drink Arisu, the city’s tap water. The drinking rate has risen for the second consecutive year as more residents drink tap water outdoors, including in parks and along walking trails. 
The 2026 Seoul Citizens’ Drinking Water Consumption Pattern Survey, commissioned by the Seoul Metropolitan Government and conducted by Korea Research among 1,000 Seoul residents, found that this year’s Arisu drinking rate was 75.5%. The rate has risen for the second consecutive year, following 69.6% in 2024 and 75% last year.
The Arisu drinking rate is the combined share of residents who drink tap water at home (53.9%) and those who do not drink it at home but do so elsewhere (21.6%).
The increase in the drinking rate was largely due to more residents drinking Arisu outdoors. The share who said they had drunk tap water outside their home in the past year was 56.5%, up 4.9 percentage points from 2024 (51.6%). Parks, sports fields and sports facilities were the most common places to drink it (32.8%), followed by streets, walking paths and trails (21.5%). In particular, reported experience drinking tap water at parks and sports facilities rose 5.3 percentage points from last year.
The share who said they had used an Arisu drinking fountain also rose to 54.5%, from 53.3% last year. A total of 78.7% said they would use one if the area around it were kept clean, while 76.7% said they would use one if its hygiene and convenience were improved. This suggests that improving the hygiene and convenience of existing facilities, as well as expanding the number of outdoor drinking fountains, has emerged as a key task in boosting use.
Seoul residents’ rate of drinking Arisu was also found to be high compared with major countries and cities overseas. Using the American Water Works Association (AWWA)’s measure of whether people have experience drinking tap water, Seoul’s tap-water drinking rate was 78.2%, 13.2 percentage points higher than the U.S. rate (65% in 2024). Under the survey criteria used in Paris, France, which count people who drink only tap water as well as those who drink it alongside other water, Seoul’s rate was 82.5%, 1.5 percentage points higher than Paris’s (81% in 2025).
Overall satisfaction with Arisu was 80.2%, surpassing 80% for the first time since the survey began. It has risen steadily from 77.4% in 2024 and 79.9% last year. Satisfaction with water quality stood at 82.8%, while satisfaction with drinking the water and using it to prepare food was 91.1%. The share who said tap water could be “drunk without worry” also increased, from 48.3% last year to 52.1% this year.
Water quality testing and the provision of information were also found to have positively affected public trust in tap water. Some 78.3% of residents who had received water quality testing and 77% of those who had encountered information about tap water said their perception of tap water had improved.
Kwon Min, head of the Seoul Arisu Headquarters, said, “It is a meaningful change that the share of people drinking tap water has risen for the second consecutive year and satisfaction has surpassed 80% for the first time.” He added, “We will strengthen water quality testing and the provision of information so that residents can verify the safety of tap water for themselves.”

[email protected] Lee Seol-yeong Reporter