Hosepipe Ban Rules for Businesses and Tradespeople (UK)
Published: July 13, 2026 · Updated:
A hosepipe ban restricts domestic use. If a hosepipe is genuinely part of your trade (window cleaning, hand car washing, commercial growing) you can generally keep working.
But being a business does not exempt your own premises: a pub cannot hosepipe its beer garden, and an office cannot hosepipe its flowerbeds. The test is whether the water use is the trade itself. Every company words its exemption slightly differently, and the supplier's own notice is definitive.
A Temporary Use Ban (TUB) under Section 76 of the Water Industry Act 1991 restricts a list of largely domestic activities done with a mains hosepipe. The statutory framework behind every 2026 notice carries a commercial exception, reproduced verbatim in Leep Networks' notice as covering "hand car washing, window cleaning, graffiti removal" and equivalent day-to-day business uses of a hosepipe. This page sets out who can keep working, where businesses are still restricted, and what each company with a 2026 ban actually publishes.
Trades That Can Keep Working
The standard commercial exception covers customers who use hosepipes in the course of their day-to-day business operation. In practice that means:
- Window cleaners, including water-fed pole systems: the hosepipe use is the trade.
- Hand car washes and valeting businesses: named in the statutory example list, and Southern Water names commercial vehicle washing in its own exemptions.
- Graffiti removal and exterior cleaning trades: named in the statutory example list.
- Commercial horticulture: plants grown for sale or commercial food production. South East Water's Kent notice exempts commercial food production explicitly, and garden centres and nurseries watering stock they sell are watering their trade.
- Commercial agriculture: farm use of water for crops and livestock sits outside a domestic TUB entirely.
Two caveats. First, the exemption follows the use, not the trader: a window cleaner's round is exempt, the window cleaner's own garden is not. Second, each company publishes its own wording, so a trade that is comfortably inside one company's exception should still confirm the wording where it works. The per-company section below links every notice.
Where Businesses ARE Restricted
The commercial exception excludes the watering of gardens: Leep Networks' statutory notice draws exactly that line, exempting business use of hosepipes while excluding garden watering from it. A business hosepiping its own non-commercial grounds is doing restricted domestic-type watering, whoever pays the water bill. That covers:
- Beer gardens and pub planters: a garden, not a trade use of water.
- Office flowerbeds, communal gardens and landlord-maintained grounds: restricted in the same way as a household garden.
- Washing the company car park, paths or signage with a mains hosepipe: cleaning artificial outdoor surfaces is a named restricted activity.
The same workarounds available to households remain available to businesses: watering cans and buckets are always legal, and stored rainwater or grey water can go through any equipment because the ban restricts the mains supply, not the water source. A water butt on a commercial building's downpipe is a perfectly legal way to keep a beer garden alive; see the rainwater workaround for the mechanics.
Grey Areas Worth Checking With Your Company
Some uses sit close to the line, and the honest answer is company-specific. Under Cambridge Water's FAQ, the test is whether hosepipe use is directly related to the use of water for commercial purposes, and its enforcement approach for reported breaches is to make contact, explain the restrictions and check for exemptions before anything escalates. Under Leep Networks' notice, pools have their own carve-outs (during construction, or for medical or veterinary treatment), which matters for trades that build or maintain them.
If your case is not clearly your trade (a courtesy wash thrown in free with a service, cleaning equipment that touches both trade and premises, dust suppression on a site), ask your water company in writing before relying on an exemption. Every company page in our hub links the company's own notice and contact route, and the postcode checker tells you which company serves the premises.
What Each Company's Notice Says About Business Use
Every row below is taken from that company's own published notice or FAQ. Where a notice is silent on a point, the row says so rather than borrowing another company's wording.
| Company | Business position | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Anglian Water | Anglian Water's published exceptions cover specific business needs alongside health, safety, animal welfare and religious practice. Its notice does not publish a general trade list; if your business relies on a hosepipe, check the restrictions and exceptions page and its Temporary Use Ban enforcement policy for the conditions. | Restrictions and exceptions |
| Southern Water | Southern Water's exemptions include use for commercial purposes, giving commercial vehicle washing as an example. Domestic use at a business's own premises is not covered by that exemption. | Temporary Use Ban advice |
| South East Water | South East Water's Kent notice exempts commercial food production. Its FAQs are the reference for other business uses; the ban is aimed at domestic use of its Kent supply. | Kent TUB notice and FAQs |
| Cambridge Water | Cambridge Water's FAQ says business and non-household customers may use a hosepipe where it is directly related to the use of water for commercial purposes, and lists businesses where hosepipe use is essential to operations among its exceptions. Non-essential use at business premises remains restricted. | Temporary hosepipe ban FAQs |
| Thames Water | Thames Water's FAQ lets a business keep using a hose or jet washer for services to customers, naming window, wall, path, patio and artificial-surface cleaning and car washing services. But for a business's own vehicles it exempts only public service vehicles and goods vehicles: a taxi or private hire vehicle may NOT be hosepipe-cleaned, which is stricter than South East Water. Using a customer's own hosepipe for a job, such as valeting or cleaning bins, is allowed, but not for watering a domestic garden. | Hosepipe ban FAQs |
| Affinity Water | Affinity Water's website guidance states that businesses may continue to use a hosepipe where it is directly needed for their commercial activities. That concession is not spelled out in the Section 76B statutory notice itself, which sets out narrower trade exceptions (growing crops or plants for sale, National Plant Collections, temporary flower displays), so keep a copy of the guidance if you rely on it. Representations can be made in writing. | Hosepipe ban guidance |
Vehicle Cleaning: Where the Companies Disagree
Vehicle cleaning is the clearest case of why you cannot copy one company's rule to another. Cleaning cars as a service to customers is exempt everywhere with a ban. Cleaning a business's OWN vehicles is where they split, and a taxi is the test case.
- South East Water: taxis exempt. Cars cleaned as a service to customers in the course of a business are exempt, and public service, goods, commercial and taxi vehicles may be cleaned with a hosepipe. This is the opposite of Thames Water, which does not exempt taxis. (South East Water, verified 2026-07-20)
- Thames Water: taxis NOT exempt. A business may hosepipe-clean only public service vehicles and goods vehicles. All other business vehicles are covered by the ban. A taxi or private hire vehicle may NOT be cleaned with a hosepipe: use a bucket and sponge. (Thames Water, verified 2026-07-21)
A taxi firm on the South East Water boundary in Kent may hose its cars while an identical firm a few miles away on the Thames Water network may not. Sports and recreation grounds face a similar split: an active playing surface may be watered where a company allows it, but only the strip in play, not the whole ground, and South East Water time-limits any hosepipe exemption to outside peak hours (8am to 10am and 5pm to 9pm). Check your own supplier's notice, linked in the table above, before relying on any of this.
The Horticulture Trade's Exemption Gap
Growers and landscapers have long argued that the statutory exemption list, written around food crops and commercial nurseries, does not cleanly cover ornamental horticulture and landscaping work. The Horticultural Trades Association and the landscaping body BALI have pressed DEFRA on the point in previous drought summers, arguing that the perennials-and-planting side of the trade falls into a gap between the food-crop exemption and the domestic-garden restriction. As of July 2026 the statutory exemptions are unchanged, so a landscaper relies on each company's own wording: Thames Water, for instance, allows a hose on new planting for 28 days only where the work was done by a business as a service, and only on that new planting. Treat this as background rather than a settled rule and confirm with the supplier for any specific job.
Live now: Southern Water has applied for a Non-Essential Use Ban
This stopped being hypothetical this summer. Southern Water applied to Defra on 31 July 2026, per the Environment Agency, for a drought order and a Non-Essential Use Ban covering Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, and the public consultation ran to 11 August. It is the first NEUB move of the summer and it is aimed squarely at the trades on this page: per Ofwat, a NEUB would stop businesses filling or maintaining non-domestic pools, paddling pools and ponds, running mechanical vehicle washers, and cleaning vehicles or non-domestic premises. Bans of this kind are rare: the last Southern Water ones were made in 2006.
It is still applied for and NOT granted. The consultation has closed and the decision rests with the Secretary of State; the Environment Agency's drought report for 7 to 13 August 2026 still lists it as applied for with no decision published. Southern Water says plainly that making an application does not mean it will be introduced. Nothing has changed for businesses yet. The hosepipe ban already in force for Hampshire and the Isle of Wight households is a separate instrument and is unaffected either way. See the Southern Water status page for the current position.
What Comes After a TUB: the Non-Essential Use Ban
A TUB is the first statutory rung and deliberately targets domestic use. If a drought deepens, the next rung is an ordinary drought order, applied for by the company and granted by the Secretary of State, which can restrict non-essential uses including commercial ones: commercial vehicle washing, watering plants in commercial premises, filling commercial pools, and similar. That is the point at which the business exemptions above start to narrow.
No 2026 company has a drought order restricting commercial use in force, and we are not predicting one; the ladder simply exists, and businesses planning for a long dry season should know the rung above. For the full mechanics see drought orders explained and drought permit vs hosepipe ban.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can window cleaners work during a hosepipe ban?
Yes. Window cleaning is one of the named examples of the standard commercial exemption: customers who use a hosepipe in the course of their day-to-day business can keep working. Leep Networks' 2026 statutory notice names hand car washing, window cleaning and graffiti removal as examples, and the companies with bans in force publish equivalent business exemptions. The exemption covers the trade itself, not the tradesperson's own garden at home, which stays under the domestic rules.
Do hosepipe bans apply to businesses?
A Temporary Use Ban restricts a list of mostly domestic activities done with a mains hosepipe. Water used as a genuine part of a business (a hand car wash, a window cleaning round, commercial growing) is generally exempt under each company's published notice. What a business cannot do is hosepipe its own non-commercial grounds: the test is whether the water use is the trade, not whether a business is doing the watering. Each company words its exemption slightly differently, so check your supplier's own notice.
Can I water my pub's beer garden during a hosepipe ban?
Not with a mains hosepipe. A beer garden is a garden: watering it is a restricted activity, and being a business does not turn garden watering into a commercial use of water. Leep Networks' statutory notice makes the boundary explicit by excluding the watering of gardens from the commercial exemption. A pub can still water its beer garden with a watering can, or with stored rainwater or grey water through any equipment, exactly as a household can.
Are commercial car washes open during a hosepipe ban?
Yes. Businesses that use water as part of their business are exempt, and both hand car washes and automated car washes continue to operate. Southern Water's exemptions name commercial vehicle washing as an example. What is banned is washing your own car at home with a mains hosepipe or mains-fed pressure washer; a bucket and sponge at home remains legal too.
What is a non-essential use ban?
The next rung on the statutory ladder. A Temporary Use Ban, made by the water company under Section 76 of the Water Industry Act 1991, restricts mostly domestic hosepipe uses. If drought deepens, a company can apply to the Secretary of State for an ordinary drought order restricting non-essential uses, which can reach commercial activities such as vehicle washing, plant watering in commercial premises, and filling commercial pools. That requires a formal application and approval; no 2026 company has one in force. See our drought order explainer for the full ladder.
Related Guides
- What you can still do under a hosepipe ban: the domestic exemptions list.
- Drip irrigation during a hosepipe ban: the qualifying spec, criterion by criterion.
- Hosepipe ban fines explained: the £1,000 penalty and how enforcement works.
- Drought orders explained: the escalation ladder above a TUB.
- UK postcode checker: which company serves your premises.
- UK hosepipe ban hub: every company, every date, every fine.
Business wording is taken from each company's own published notice or FAQ, verified 13 July 2026. Companies can amend notices at any time; confirm with your own supplier before relying on an exemption for your trade. ← Back to UK hosepipe ban status