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DWE Home > Home > Water Management > Water access and trade >

Water access and trade

The Department of Water and Energy is responsible for managing access to water and ensuring water is shared between the environment, towns and cities, and farmers and industry as well as for Aboriginal cultural activities. 

Whether or not you need a licence (or other approval) from the Department to access surface water (water from rivers, lakes etc) for your rural property depends on how and why you want to use the water. However to access groundwater for any purpose requires a licence or approval from the Department.

Water for my rural property – do I require a licence? (PDF 58KB)
Can I sink a bore?

Basic landholder rights

Rural landholders have rights to access water for some basic purposes such as domestic and stock water, harvestable rights from farm dams and native title rights.

What are basic water rights?
Can I build a farm dam?

Licences, approvals and trading

If you want to extract water from rivers or aquifers and use it for commercial purposes, you will generally require a licence and/or other approval from the Department. In addition, to carry out works in, on or under waterfront land a controlled activity approval is required.

The NSW Government is developing a floodplain harvesting policy and licensing framework.

For assistance in calculating how much water you may need for stock, domestic or general farming needs read the fact sheet: How much water do I need for my rural property? (PDF 69KB).

For water licences and associated water trading (the buying and selling of water licences or annual allocation water), NSW is currently operating under two pieces of legislation. If you are in an area where a water sharing plan has commenced, your licence comes under the Water Management Act 2000, if not the licensing provisions of the Water Act 1912 still apply.

To find out if your licence is in a water sharing plan area – go to Where does the Water Management Act apply?

• For Water Management Act 2000 application forms and more information go to Licensing and trading under the Water Management Act 2000.
• For Water Act 1912 application forms and more information go to Licensing and trading under the Water Act 1912.

For information about the water licences issued for the major water and energy utilities go to Licences for Major Corporations and Water Utilities.

The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) set the prices that can be charged for water in NSW. This includes the fees for licence applications and the annual water charges. IPART have also allowed some irrigators to elect which pricing tariff they are charged. For more information go to Water pricing.

The Public Registers provide information on all Water Management Act licences and approvals and water trading statistics from 2004/2005 onwards.

Solicitors' enquiries

The Department provides a service to assist in obtaining the interests held under the Water Act 1912 and/or the Water Management Act 2000 for specific parcels of land. For more information, go to solicitors' enquiries.