Setting Up Utilities for a San Antonio Rental: CPS Energy, SAWS, and the Move-In Checklist

Your lease start date is not your utility start date. In San Antonio, electric and gas run through CPS Energy, water and sewer run through SAWS, and both bill in your name from the day you request service — not from the day you sign the lease. Miss the setup and you either sit in a dark unit on move-in day or inherit whoever's usage was on the meter before you.

Most San Antonio leases put utilities on the tenant from day one and require proof of transfer before the landlord releases keys. This is the practical order of operations, the deposits you can usually avoid, and where the rules change once you cross out of Bexar County.

Who provides what inside San Antonio city limits

San Antonio's utility map is unusual because the two biggest utilities are municipally owned and don't overlap with each other.

• CPS Energy — electric and natural gas. Owned by the City of San Antonio. Serves all of Bexar County and parts of seven surrounding counties.
• SAWS (San Antonio Water System) — water and wastewater (sewer). Also city-owned. Separate account, separate bill, separate login from CPS.
• City of San Antonio Solid Waste Management — trash, recycling, and brush pickup for single-family homes inside city limits. Billed on your CUPS-adjacent city services statement, not by CPS.
• Internet — private market. Spectrum and AT&T Fiber cover most of the city; Google Fiber has been expanding into pockets of the north and east side.

Apartment renters usually only deal with CPS and internet — water, sewer, and trash are typically bundled into rent or billed back through a third-party allocator like Conservice. Check your lease's utility addendum before you assume.

The order to set things up

Start three to five business days before your lease begins. Every one of these can be done online.

1. CPS Energy — cpsenergy.com, "Start Service." You'll need your lease, a government ID, and the service address. Same-day connection is usually possible for existing active meters; new construction or disconnected meters take longer.
2. SAWS — saws.org, "Start Service." Same documentation. SAWS will not start service without a completed request in your name.
3. City Solid Waste (single-family only) — if you're renting a house inside San Antonio city limits, call 311 or use sanantonio.gov to confirm the cart is registered to your address. If the prior tenant took the cart or it was never delivered, this is a two- to three-week fix.
4. Internet — schedule the install for the day after move-in at the earliest. Spectrum and AT&T both routinely miss first-attempt appointments; don't take PTO for it.

Bring the confirmation emails from CPS and SAWS to your key handoff. Most Bexar County landlords and property managers will ask.

Deposits and how to avoid them

CPS Energy and SAWS both run a credit-style check when you start service. If you pass, no deposit. If you don't, expect a deposit that's roughly two average monthly bills, refundable after 12 months of on-time payment.

Three ways to skip the deposit even with thin or damaged credit:

• Letter of Credit from your prior utility. If you had 12 consecutive months of on-time payments at your last address — anywhere in the U.S. — request a letter of credit or "letter of good payment history" from that utility. CPS and SAWS both accept these. This is the single most useful move for renters coming from out of state.
• Co-applicant with established credit. A spouse, parent, or roommate with a clean CPS history can be added as the responsible party.
• LITE-UP Texas / CPS Affordability Discount Program. Income-qualified customers can get the deposit reduced or waived. Enroll through CPS's Residential Energy Assistance Partnership (REAP) intake.

Active-duty servicemembers PCSing to JBSA-Lackland, Randolph, or Fort Sam Houston can usually get the deposit waived at CPS by showing orders. Ask specifically — the CSR won't always offer it.

The suburbs where the utilities change

The minute you cross out of CPS or SAWS territory, the rules change, and the difference matters because RentInSA's active listings show meaningful inventory in these markets — 318 available in New Braunfels, 243 in Converse, 83 each in Schertz and Cibolo, and 70 in Boerne as of September 2026.

City	Electric	Water/Sewer	Notes
Converse	CPS Energy	SAWS or East Central SUD	Mostly CPS/SAWS, but check the address
Schertz	CPS or GVEC	City of Schertz	GVEC (Guadalupe Valley Electric Co-op) serves parts north of FM 3009
Cibolo	GVEC or CPS	Green Valley SUD or City of Cibolo	Green Valley requires its own deposit and its own paperwork
New Braunfels	NBU (New Braunfels Utilities)	NBU	One utility for electric, water, and wastewater — simpler than SA
Boerne	Boerne City Utilities or Bandera Electric Co-op	Boerne City Utilities	Small-city billing office; not everything is online
Helotes	CPS	SAWS or Helotes-area SUD	Check the exact address; SUDs (Special Utility Districts) vary block to block

Co-ops like GVEC and Bandera Electric bill differently from CPS and often require larger initial deposits without a co-op-specific credit history. New Braunfels Utilities is the easiest suburban setup because it's one account for everything — but NBU deposits are notably higher than CPS for renters without local history.

Before you sign a lease outside San Antonio proper, put the exact address into each utility's service-area lookup. Landlords are often wrong about which utility serves the property, especially in Schertz and Cibolo where CPS and GVEC lines interlock.

Timing with your lease start

Texas Property Code § 92.052 obligates the landlord to deliver the unit in a habitable condition, but "habitable" does not mean "utilities in your name are already on." That's on you. Two timing traps:

• Same-day starts fail more often than you'd think. CPS and SAWS both offer next-business-day service, but if you call at 4:45 p.m. on a Friday for a Saturday move-in, you're sitting in the dark until Monday. Request service for the business day before your lease starts. You will not be double-billed by the landlord — the meter reading on your start date is what counts.
• Prorated first months. If your lease starts mid-month, your first CPS and SAWS bills will be partial-cycle. Budget for a full month of usage anyway; the second month often arrives before the first is fully cleared and the combined hit surprises people.

What most people get wrong

• Assuming CPS does water. CPS is electric and gas only. SAWS is a separate company with a separate account. Setting up one does not set up the other.
• Waiting for the landlord to "transfer" utilities. There is no transfer. The prior tenant closes their account; you open a new one in your name. If nobody opens a new account, the meter goes on the landlord's builder/vacancy account and you'll get charged back at a markup.
• Not getting a letter of credit before leaving the old city. Once you've closed your prior utility account, getting that letter takes weeks. Request it while the account is still active.
• Ignoring the gas meter. Many San Antonio homes, especially older stock in 78209 (Alamo Heights area), 78210 (Southtown), and 78201 (Deco District), have gas water heaters, gas furnaces, or gas stoves. CPS handles both electric and gas, but you have to request gas service explicitly — it's a separate line on the start-service form.
• Buying renters insurance after move-in. Most San Antonio leases require proof of a renters policy with the landlord named as additional interest before keys. Bind the policy the day you sign the lease, not the day you move.
• Forgetting trash in the suburbs. In San Antonio proper, trash is a city utility. In parts of Converse, Cibolo, and unincorporated Bexar County, you contract directly with Tiger Sanitation, Waste Management, or Republic. No one sets this up for you.

Before you sign

When you tour a rental, note the meter numbers on the electric and gas meters and photograph them. On move-in day, photograph them again. That's the reading your first CPS bill should start from — if it doesn't, you have a paper trail to dispute.

If you're still comparing rentals across the San Antonio metro, browse current listings on RentInSA at /rentals — you can filter by city to see how the utility footprint changes between San Antonio, Schertz, Cibolo, New Braunfels, and Boerne before you commit to an address. More renter guides on qualifying, applying, and move-in are at /resources.