Perth Watering Days: The Sprinkler Roster Explained

Perth runs on a two-day sprinkler roster. It applies across Perth and Mandurah — not the whole state; Karratha and the West Pilbara moved to three days in April 2026 — and, the part people get wrong, your local council has nothing to do with it. The restrictions are made under the Water Agencies (Water Use) By-laws 2010; Water Corporation administers scheme water and enforces the roster, DWER regulates bores.

Western Australia's two-day roster was introduced in October 2007 after a trial. Observing it saves around 4.5 billion litres of water a year.

Need a hand rather than a how-to? Call us on (08) 6263 4644 — repairs are booked, not quoted, and most faults are fixed in the same visit.

The rules, in short

• Two watering days a week, determined by your street number.
• Once on each rostered day, before 9am or after 6pm. Not both windows on the same day, and never between 9am and 6pm.
• Winter sprinkler switch-off from 1 June to 31 August — no sprinklers at all, scheme or bore.
• $100 on-the-spot fine for watering outside your days, outside those hours, or during the switch-off ($500 maximum on prosecution).
• Garden bores are on the same roster. Since 1 September 2022, bore owners no longer get an extra day.
• Hand watering is allowed outside your rostered days — a hose with a trigger nozzle, or a watering can. Still best done before 9am or after 6pm to limit evaporation.

Finding your days

Your roster days come from the last digit of your street number. Where a property has no street number, the lot number is used.

One consequence that catches people out: neighbours on either side of a boundary can have different days, and so can two halves of the same street. If you have just moved in, do not assume the previous owner's controller settings are right for your number.

Check yours on Water Corporation's watering days page.

Two days is enough — if the system is right

The most common objection we hear is that two days a week cannot keep a lawn alive through a Perth summer. On a well-set-up system it comfortably can.

Water Corporation's guidance is roughly 10mm on each of your two rostered days. The question is whether your system actually delivers 10mm, evenly, and whether that 10mm soaks in.

Two things decide it:

Coverage. If the nozzles on a station apply water at different rates, you end up setting the run time for the driest patch and drowning everything else. Matched-precipitation nozzles fix this and usually cost less than adding a station.

Absorption. On dry Perth sand, water beads and runs off instead of soaking in. On clay-loam and Scarp gravel, sprinklers apply faster than the soil can take it. Both are solved the same way — split one watering into two shorter cycles with a gap between them, kept inside the same window (both before 9am, or both after 6pm). Your controller's Cycle & Soak function does this within one programme run.

That is cycle-and-soak, and it is the single highest-value change most Perth systems can make. It uses the same water on the same day and gets far more of it to the roots. We cover the soil-by-soil detail in Perth soil types and how to water them.

Exemptions you can actually apply for

Most people do not realise these exist.

New lawn or garden. If you are establishing new turf or a new garden, you can apply for a watering exemption to water outside the roster while it establishes. Two things matter: apply on the day it goes in so you get the full period, and wind the controller back to your rostered days when it expires. New turf genuinely does need several short waterings a day in its first week — but that requires the exemption, not just a change to the controller.

Bushfire-prone areas. Homeowners without scheme water in a DFES bushfire-prone area can seek an exemption from the two-day roster. That one is a garden-bore exemption administered by DWER, not Water Corporation.

You will be charged for the extra water an exemption lets you use, and it affects your usage for the billing year rather than just that period.

Apply through Water Corporation — not through your council, even for a verge.

The winter switch-off

From 1 June to 31 August no sprinklers may run, on scheme water or bore. The ban is on reticulation — a handheld hose or a watering can stays legal. Perth's winter rainfall does the job, and the ban gives the groundwater system a chance to recover.

Two things worth doing rather than simply switching off:

• Turn the controller to off, not to a blank program. A blank program is easy to leave blank in September.
• Use the window for repairs. Winter is when we can dig, trace wiring and replace valves without a lawn dying while we do it. It is also our quietest period, so bookings are easier to get.

More detail: the winter sprinkler ban in Perth.

What is not a Water Corporation matter

Two things get confused with the roster constantly:

Verge rules are set by your council, and they differ substantially — whether you may install verge reticulation at all, how deep the pipe sits, even which nozzles are acceptable. We have documented what 24 Perth councils allow in verge reticulation: what your council allows.

Garden bore licensing sits with the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation. Most domestic bores do not need a licence, but the rules around block size and aquifer do matter — see garden bores in Perth.

Getting your two days working

If your lawn is struggling on the roster, the fault is almost never the roster. It is coverage, run time, or water that is running off instead of soaking in — and all three are fixable.

Keeping your system tuned with regular reticulation maintenance is what makes two days a week enough. Going waterwise can also pay you back — see our guide to the Water Corporation reticulation rebate.

Sources: roster days, times, winter switch-off, penalties and exemptions from Water Corporation. Checked 28 July 2026 — rosters and exemption terms change, so confirm before relying on them.