Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation (WIFIA)

The WIFIA program accelerates investment in water and wastewater infrastructure of national and regional significance by offering creditworthy borrowers loans for up to 49 percent of eligible project costs. For small communities of 25,000 or less people who face significant water infrastructure challenges and economic or administrative hardship accessing funding and financing, the WIFIA program may provide loans for up to 80 percent of eligible project costs. The WIFIA program can fund planning, design, and construction activities for a wide variety of eligible water infrastructure projects, including wastewater conveyance and treatment projects; drinking water treatment and distribution projects; stormwater management; non-point source pollution control; projects that enhance energy efficiency in the operation of a public water system or a publicly owned treatment works; desalination, aquifer recharge, and water recycling projects; acquisition of property if it is integral to the project or will mitigate the environmental impact of a project; and a combination of eligible projects secured by a common security pledge or submitted under one application by an SRF program. Eligible borrowers include: local, state, tribal, government entities, partnerships and joint ventures, corporations and trusts, and clean water and drinking water state revolving fund (SRF) programs. In addition, a set-aside of the WIFIA program, called the State infrastructure financing authority WIFIA (SWIFIA) program, authorized by Congress in section 4201 of America’s Water Infrastructure Act (AWIA) of 2018, provides loans exclusively to state revolving fund programs.