Short answer: yes. Tap water across Puglia is supplied by Acquedotto Pugliese (AQP), it’s tested thousands of times a year, and it has to meet the same EU safety limits as tap water anywhere else in Italy. You can drink it in Bari, Lecce, Monopoli, Polignano a Mare, Ostuni and Brindisi. The catch is taste, hardness, and in Salento, nitrate levels that sit well within the legal limit but higher than some people are comfortable with. More on that below.
Where Puglia’s tap water comes from
Puglia has almost no rivers or lakes of its own, because the limestone ground soaks rainwater straight down. So most of the region’s drinking water is piped in from elsewhere. According to AQP, roughly 55% comes from five reservoirs (Sinni, Pertusillo, Conza, Occhito and Locone), about 33% from mountain springs in Irpinia in Campania, and about 12% from around 170 wells, most of them in southern Puglia.
That split matters when you read the rest of this post. Bari and the towns along the coast to Monopoli and Polignano mostly drink treated reservoir and spring water. Salento, around Lecce, relies more on groundwater from wells, and that’s where nitrates come from.
Tap water town by town
AQP publishes lab results for every town, updated every six months. You can look up your own on the AQP water quality page by typing the town name into the “Abitato” box.
Here are AQP’s latest published figures (July to December 2025) for the towns people ask about most:
| Town | Nitrate (mg/L) | Hardness (°F) | pH | Sodium (mg/L) | Dissolved solids (mg/L) | E. coli |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bari | 2 | 19 | 7.8 | 29 | 331 | <1 |
| Monopoli | 2 | 20 | 7.8 | 20 | 308 | <1 |
| Polignano a Mare | 2 | 20 | 7.7 | 21 | 315 | <1 |
| Ostuni | 2 | 18 | 8.0 | 15 | 278 | <1 |
| Brindisi | 2 | 18 | 8.0 | 12 | 258 | <1 |
| Lecce | 19 | 29 | 7.7 | 72 | 584 | <1 |
Two things stand out. From Bari down the coast to Brindisi, nitrate is about 2 mg/L, which is very low. Lecce is the outlier at 19 mg/L, still well under the 50 mg/L limit, and its water is noticeably harder and saltier.
For reference, the legal limit for nitrate in Italian drinking water is 50 mg/L (Legislative Decree 18/2023, which applies the EU Drinking Water Directive 2020/2184). The WHO guideline is also 50 mg/L.
We tested tap water in Lecce
We ran a Watersafe drinking water test kit on tap water in Lecce. The nitrate strip read somewhere between 5 and 10 ppm, and the pH came out on the high side.
That’s one sample from one tap, so treat it as a rough check and not a lab result.
Is that a lot? It depends on the units
This is where we got it wrong in the first version of this post, so here’s the correction.
Nitrate can be reported in two ways, and they differ by a factor of about 4.4:
- As nitrate (NO3). This is how Italy, the EU, the WHO and AQP report it. The limit is 50 mg/L.
- As nitrogen (NO3-N). This is how the US EPA reports it. The limit is 10 mg/L, which equals about 45 mg/L as nitrate.
Our original post compared AQP’s Lecce figure at the time, 20 mg/L (as nitrate), to the EPA’s 10 mg/L (as nitrogen) and called it double the US limit. It isn’t. 20 mg/L as nitrate is about 4.5 mg/L as nitrogen (the latest figure, 19 mg/L, is about the same), which is under half the EPA limit and under half the EU limit.
Our kit’s color chart reports nitrate “as N”, in other words as nitrogen, as you can see in the photo above. So a reading of 5 to 10 ppm works out at about 22 to 44 mg/L as nitrate. That’s still under the legal limit, but in the upper half of it, and higher than AQP’s own lab figure for Lecce. Home test strips are only approximate, so AQP’s lab results are the more reliable number.
Why Salento has more nitrate
Studies of Salento’s groundwater have found nitrate concentrations rising over time, mainly from farm fertilizer leaching down into the aquifer. A 2023 study by Gabriella Balacco and colleagues in Groundwater for Sustainable Development mapped where the aquifer is most vulnerable. AQP’s treatment and blending keep the tap water within the legal limit, but it explains why Lecce’s nitrate is roughly ten times Bari’s.
Why so many locals still buy bottled water
Walk through any Puglia supermarket and you’ll see people loading six-packs of bottled water into their carts. Italy is one of the biggest bottled-water drinkers in the world, and Puglia is no exception. The reasons people usually give are taste, hard water, and habit.
Two practical points are worth knowing:
- Your building’s pipes matter. AQP is responsible for the water up to your meter. After that it runs through your building’s pipes and sometimes a storage tank, which can affect taste and quality. In an older building, run the tap for a bit before drinking, especially first thing in the morning. If you’re moving into a new home, our guide on how to turn on utilities in Italy explains how to set up the water supply.
- Hard water is a taste and limescale issue, not a health one. You’ll notice it in the kettle and on the shower glass before you notice it in a glass of water.
Free and cheap refills: fontanelle and case dell’acqua
Many towns have public drinking fountains fed by AQP, known locally as “cape de firr” in Bari dialect, and AQP’s free FontaninApp shows where they are. The same app lists bars and restaurants that serve AQP tap water in a carafe, which some places in Polignano a Mare, Vieste and Gallipoli have signed up for.
Many towns also have a casa dell’acqua, a kiosk that sells filtered still or sparkling water by the liter.
Babies and pregnancy
The nitrate limits exist mainly to protect babies under six months, who are more sensitive to nitrate. Tap water within the legal limit is considered safe. If you’re making formula and want extra margin, look for an Italian mineral water labeled as suitable for infants (“indicata per l’alimentazione dei lattanti” or “indicata per la preparazione degli alimenti dei lattanti”): waters intended for infants must have 10 mg/L of nitrate or less. Check the nitrate figure printed on the label, and ask your pediatrician if you’re unsure.
Should you use a filter?
It depends on what you want to fix:
- Chlorine taste: a basic jug filter with activated carbon helps.
- Limescale: a jug filter with an ion-exchange cartridge softens the water a bit.
- Nitrate: standard carbon filters don’t remove it. You’d need reverse osmosis, ion exchange designed for nitrate, or distillation.
The bottom line for visitors
If you’re visiting Bari, Monopoli, Polignano a Mare, Ostuni or Brindisi for a week, drink the tap water, refill your bottle at fountains, and don’t worry about it. If you’re moving to Salento long term and nitrate concerns you, look up your town on the AQP site, test your own tap, and decide whether a reverse osmosis filter is worth it for your household.
Sources (checked 29 September 2026)
- Acquedotto Pugliese, water quality by town
- Acquedotto Pugliese, water sources (55% reservoirs, 33% Irpinia springs, 12% wells)
- Acquedotto Pugliese, supply system and six water schemes
- Acquedotto Pugliese, FontaninApp and tap water in carafes
- Italian Legislative Decree 18/2023, Annex I (nitrate limit 50 mg/L)
- US EPA, nitrate rule overview (limit 10 mg/L as nitrogen)
- Virginia Tech Extension, nitrate units (10 mg/L NO3-N = 45 mg/L NO3) and treatment options
- Balacco G. et al., “Assessment of groundwater nitrate pollution using the Indicator Kriging approach”, Groundwater for Sustainable Development 21 (2023), 100920
- Italian Ministry of Health Decree of 10 February 2015, article 2(4) (nitrate limit of 10 mg/L for waters intended for infants)
