Can You Drink the Water in Aruba? Yes, and Here’s Why

Yes, you can drink the water in Aruba straight from the tap. The Aruba Tourism Authority says the island’s tap water is safe and that visitors can confidently drink it at hotels, restaurants and homes. It’s desalinated seawater, made and tested by the island’s own water company.

The official sources cover where the water comes from, who tests it and how it compares with World Health Organization guidelines. The one thing they don’t address is ice.

Can you drink the water in Aruba? What the official sources say

Two official sources back it up. The tourism authority says the water is “known for its high quality and clean taste” and that there’s no need to buy bottled water. The water company, W.E.B. Aruba N.V. (usually just called WEB), says its water “complies with the WHO guidelines in every way”.

Travel guides agree. Frommer’s says Aruba’s tap water is “completely safe to drink and tastes fine”. We didn’t find a single source in our research that told visitors to avoid it.

Where Aruba’s tap water comes from

Aruba has no rivers, lakes or groundwater to draw on. WEB puts it plainly: the island “doesn’t have natural fresh water sources”. So every glass from the tap started out as seawater.

WEB makes it with seawater reverse osmosis. Electric pumps force seawater at high pressure through semi-permeable membranes that hold the salt back. The fresh water is stored in seven tanks at WEB’s site and seven more at strategic points around the island, on hilltops 60 to 110 meters above sea level, according to a 2024 statement from the company. The same statement puts average output at about 36,000 cubic meters a day.

Making water from the sea is old news here. WEB’s history page says it has produced drinking water since 1932. Thermal plants did the job for decades. The first reverse osmosis unit (8,000 cubic meters a day) arrived in March 2008, a second of 24,000 cubic meters a day followed in 2012, and by 2015 all desalination ran on reverse osmosis. There were lean years too: in 1982, 1983 and 1990, demand ran ahead of supply and drinking water was imported from the US, Venezuela and Dominica.

A new plant is also in the works. In April 2024 WEB signed a 10-year deal with Seven Seas Water Group for a reverse osmosis plant of at least 16,500 cubic meters a day on WEB’s existing grounds, replacing a temporary facility. Seven Seas broke ground and said it expected the plant to be commissioned in 2026. When we checked in October 2026, we couldn’t find anything confirming it was running yet.

Who tests Aruba’s water, and how often

• Every day: WEB says it tests the water chemically every day. It also runs a lab it describes as ISO 17025 accredited, which tracks things like pH, conductivity and hardness.
• Every month: the Aruba National Laboratory (Landslaboratorium) takes samples at strategic sites around the island.
• Every year: WEB says National Testing Laboratories Ltd., a US company, audits its production and distribution system and tests 159 parameters (inorganic, organic and radioactive), with results within maximum concentration levels.

All three come from WEB’s water quality page, so they’re the company describing its own process. Beyond the lab accreditation and the yearly audit, we found no separate certification of the water itself.

One point on wording: the World Health Organization publishes guidelines, not certificates, so “WHO-certified” isn’t the right description. What the sources say is that WEB follows WHO guidelines, by its own account, and the tourism authority says the water meets “the highest quality standard set by the World Health Organization”.

How Aruba’s water compares with WHO guidelines

WEB publishes its own internal limits next to WHO values from 2004. The standards document linked from that page is titled with a July 2013 date, so read this as WEB’s targets, not a recent lab result.

Measure	WEB internal guideline	WHO value (2004)
Total dissolved solids	Under 75 ppm	1,000 ppm
Hardness	Under 20 ppm	500 ppm
pH	8.5 to 9.5	6.5 to 9.5
Turbidity	1.0 NTU max	5 NTU
Lead	0.01 ppm max	0.01 ppm

In plain terms, WEB aims for water that is far softer and lower in dissolved minerals than the WHO values allow. The lead limit is the same as WHO’s.

Is the ice safe in Aruba?

Here’s the gap. Neither the tourism authority nor WEB says anything specific about ice, and we didn’t find a statement from any other official body either. The only ice-specific line we found was in a third-party article saying you can make ice with Aruba’s tap water without worry.

Ice frozen from tap water is the same water, so that article’s point is easy to follow. We just want to be clear that it’s a third-party opinion, not an official statement.

Do you need to buy bottled water in Aruba?

The tourism authority’s answer is short: “No need to buy bottled water.” It suggests packing a reusable bottle and refilling it, to cut down on single-use plastic. Aruba has also officially banned single-use plastic, so a refillable bottle is in line with the island’s direction, and it’s kinder to your budget.

Fill it at breakfast and take it to the beach. If cocktails are part of the plan, a glass of water between rounds goes a long way.

Aruba’s tap water in your glass

The same desalinated water turns up in the local beer. The tourism authority says desalinated ocean water is the main ingredient of a Balashi beer, and VisitAruba says Balashi Pilsner, first brewed in October 1999, is made with the island’s desalinated water. Our guide to Balashi beer covers the brewery and the beers, and our list of Aruban drinks to try covers the rest of the local glass.

Cooking or mixing drinks at a villa? You can use the tap. And if you’d rather skip the liquor store, the juice and the bar tools, our cocktail jugs are batched fresh the same day by a professional bartender and arrive ready to pour. Each 1 gallon jug pours roughly 8 to 10 cocktails, and there’s an alcohol-free option too. You can compare the jug packages and prices, or read how cocktail delivery in Aruba works first.