The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it will be waiving fees for small communities who apply for Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) loans in fiscal years 2026 and 2027.
EPA said waiving WIFIA application and credit processing fees would clear a “notable barrier” to smaller systems trying to access funding, adding it could potentially help them save $200,000.
“EPA’s WIFIA program has $11 billion in flexible financing available to support water infrastructure projects,” said EPA Assistant Administrator for Water Jess Kramer. “Our goal is to reduce barriers to access these resources, especially in our nation’s small and rural communities.”
The WIFIA program charges fees to loan applicants to reimburse the federal government for costs incurred with processing and underwriting WIFIA loans. These costs can be financed by the WIFIA loan as eligible project costs.
Small communities are charged a $25,000 WIFIA application fee and a separate credit processing fee – currently averaging about $156,000 per loan. The application fee will be waived for small communities with populations of 25,000 or fewer and the credit processing fee will be waived for communities in fiscal years 2026 and 2027, subject to WIFIA’s program requirements and available administrative funds.
The WIFIA program currently has approximately $11 billion in flexible financing available to support water infrastructure projects across the country, including in small and rural communities where WIFIA can finance up to 80 percent of project costs. EPA is currently accepting letters of interest.
More information about EPA’s WIFIA Program is available here, including how to submit a letter of interest.
About WIFIA
Established by the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act of 2014, the WIFIA program is a federal loan program administered by EPA. The WIFIA program aims to accelerate investment in the nation’s water infrastructure by providing long-term, low-cost supplemental credit assistance for regionally and nationally significant projects. WIFIA has an active pipeline of pending applications for projects that will result in billions of dollars in water infrastructure investment and thousands of jobs.
Source/s: U.S. EPA
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