WellTestList

Where to get private well water tested, and whether you will get a PDF.

Michigan well testing: county health vs EGLE vs mail-in (2026)

WellTestList · Saturday, August 29, 2026 · state page #2

Michigan is one of the states that still runs a consumer drinking-water lab. EGLE will ship you bottles. Some county health labs will take a walk-in sample. Private certified labs are listed as PDFs. Mail-in kits email a PDF if you do not want to drive to Lansing.

The short version

  1. Call county environmental health first. EGLE’s own private-well page lists health departments with onsite labs (Washtenaw, Oakland, Kalamazoo, Saginaw, and the LMAS Upper Peninsula counties). If yours is on that list, that is usually the cheapest annual bacteria check. If not, skip to EGLE.
  2. The state lab still takes homeowners in 2026. Call EGLE’s Drinking Water Laboratory at 517-335-8184 for a kit. Coliform is $16 on the July 1, 2024 fee schedule. Partial chemistry is $18. Arsenic is $18. Fees rise October 1, 2026. No Friday bacteria samples.
  3. If you want a PDF this month without a county desk or a Lansing drop-off, an independent mail-in kit works from Michigan. Ask the lender before you sample if a bank is involved.

Yes: EGLE still runs a consumer lab

We checked this in 2026 instead of assuming the old research note was still true. It is. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) Drinking Water Laboratory tests samples from public supplies and private residential wells. It is the state’s principal lab for Safe Drinking Water Act compliance, and it sells kits to the public. Start at EGLE’s How to get your drinking water tested page, or the Drinking Water Laboratory page (short URL: michigan.gov/eglelab).

The four steps EGLE publishes:

Lab location: 3350 N. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Lansing, MI 48906. Drop-off is by appointment: Monday–Thursday 8:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m., Friday 8:00 a.m.–3:30 p.m. Closed weekends and holidays. You must call first.

Payment: invoice after analysis. Since July 1, 2024 the lab does not take a check in the box. Pay the invoice by mail or online (The Pay Place). Results go out by U.S. Mail, and by email if you put an address on the form. Most tests: about 10 business days after the lab receives the sample. Bacteria needs a 24-hour incubation; same-day results are not a thing.

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EGLE Drinking Water Laboratory fees on the July 1, 2024 schedule (EQP2301, Rev. 7/2024). Fees rise October 1, 2026. We are not inventing the new amounts; see the preview on the lab page.
Test (code) Listed fee Notes
Water coliforms, total & E. coli (BPTC) $16 Unit 30. Not accepted on Fridays as of October 1, 2025.
Automated partial chemistry (R) $18 Fluoride, chloride, hardness, nitrate, nitrite, sulfate, sodium, iron. Needs two bottles (250 mL and 125 mL). A single bottle is rejected.
Nitrate and nitrite only (NN) $17 Unit 32.
Arsenic (CAS) $18 Unit 36ME. Michigan groundwater is naturally elevated in places. See geology below.
Complete metals (CMET) $102 As, Ba, Be, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Hg, Mn, Ni, Pb, Sb, Se, Tl, Zn.
PFAS (CXPFAS) $290 Separate form and sampling instructions. MDHHS may test some investigation-area homes for free.

The current Testing Fee Schedule (PDF) is the source. Call 517-335-8184 before you collect; kits and codes change.

How to use EGLE’s certified-lab list

If you want a local drop-off instead of Lansing, EGLE’s Laboratory Certification Program is the official list. It certifies labs under the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act (1976 PA 399). It is written for compliance labs, not as a consumer directory. The lists are PDFs by scope:

Then call. Ask whether they accept a residential / private-well sample, what bottles they issue, the bacteria hold time, Friday rules, price, and whether they email a PDF. Certification does not mean they take a homeowner bottle. Many entries on those PDFs are water plants. We are not going to invent a roster of drop-off labs we did not confirm take homeowners.

EPA’s national page still points at a PDF of state certification programs (page updated August 11, 2026). For Michigan, use EGLE’s PDFs above.

County options we verified

Private wells are the owner’s job after construction. MDHHS puts more than one million private residential wells in Michigan, serving over 2.6 million people — nearly 30 percent of the state. EGLE’s Private Residential Water Well Testing page lists health departments with onsite testing. If you do not live near one of those, EGLE says to request a test through the state lab. What we could verify with a public URL tonight:

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Verified August 29, 2026. Prices are what the pages listed that day. Call before you drive.
Option What they offer Listed cost Catch
Kalamazoo County HCS Laboratory EGLE-certified lab. Nitrate, total coliform, and E. coli for private-well owners. Bottles at the lab and some township offices. Drinking-water bacteria $22. Nitrate $22. Fees subject to change. Hold-time comments on the county’s results page start at 30 hours for bacteria. Environmental Health: 269-373-5210. HCS main: 269-373-5200. 311 E. Alcott St., Kalamazoo. Mon–Fri 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., closed noon–1:00 p.m.
Saginaw County Health Department Laboratory Chemical and bacteriological drinking-water analysis. Sterile bottles from Room 102. 72-hour coliform $22. 24-hour coliform $30. Nitrate/nitrite only $20. Regulatory well (coliform and anions) $37. Deliver within 24 hours. Samples accepted Mon–Wed 8:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. Results after 4:00 p.m. Friday, or mail/email. Call 989-758-3825.
Oakland County Health Division Certified for coliform, partial chemistry (nitrate, nitrite, chloride, fluoride, sulfate), lead/copper, and arsenic. Bottles at Pontiac and Southfield offices. Bottles are purchased at Health Division offices. We did not invent a 2026 walk-up fee from a 2017 press release. Call 248-858-1280 or Pontiac lab desk 248-858-1312. health@oakgov.com. Pontiac: 1200 N. Telegraph Rd., Bldg. 34E. Southfield: 27725 Greenfield Rd. See the county fees page for current schedules.
Washtenaw County Environmental Health EGLE lists onsite testing. Bottles from the Environmental Health office; fill at the well; return to the office. Their published drinking-water tests handout listed total coliform and arsenic among the walk-up tests. Partial chemistry is ordered from EGLE, not the county desk. Handout listed $15 coliform and $15 arsenic; EGLE partial chemistry $18 plus shipping. Call 734-222-3800 to confirm tonight’s fee. zeebcss@washtenaw.org. 705 N. Zeeb Rd., Ann Arbor. County sale practice: their handout said bacteria testing is required for new/replacement wells and for residential wells of homes being sold in Washtenaw County. That is county practice, not a statewide sale statute we can quote.
LMAS District (Luce, Mackinac, Alger, Schoolcraft) EGLE-certified regional lab. Bacteria, nitrates, and other contaminants. Bottles at all four district offices. Results by mail or email; a copy goes to the county health department. Not listed on the testing page we read. Call. We did not invent a fee. Bacteria must arrive within 30 hours. Offices closed Friday. Courier windows are county-specific and tight (for example, Alger drop-off by 9:00 a.m. Tuesday or Thursday). Lab: 906-293-5107 ext. 314. EGLE’s listed county lines: Luce 906-293-5107 ext. 303; Mackinac 906-643-1100 ext. 233; Alger 906-387-2297 ext. 401; Schoolcraft 906-341-6951 ext. 110.
Western Upper Peninsula EGLE’s private-well page lists White Water Associates Laboratory for the Western U.P. Call 906-822-7889. We did not invent a menu or a fee. This is EGLE’s listing, not a page we independently priced. Confirm they still take a homeowner bottle.

If your county is not in that table, it does not mean there is no program. It means we did not find a clear public kit-and-price page tonight. Use the MALPH directory and call environmental health anyway. EGLE’s well-testing contact is Brandon Morrill, EGLE-DWEHD-WellTesting@Michigan.gov, 989-619-4494.

What Michigan geology and MDHHS actually warrant

MDHHS’s current private-well schedule (5 Tips to Maintain Your Home’s Drinking Water Quality):

Also test after a flood, a well repair, a change in taste, color, or smell, or if someone is pregnant or a baby is in the house. Hardware-store strips are screening-only. They are not an annual well test and they are not what a lender means by “tested.”

Arsenic. EGLE’s Arsenic in Well Water guidance is blunt: Michigan has naturally higher arsenic in groundwater. You cannot see or taste it. The only way to know is a lab test. EPA’s public-supply MCL is 0.010 mg/L (10 µg/L, 10 ppb). EGLE uses the same number as a health advisory for private wells. If you are over that, EGLE says do not use the well for drinking or cooking. Showering is not the exposure path they worry about. Water softeners and carbon filters do not reliably remove arsenic; EGLE points at reverse osmosis or certified adsorption media, or a different aquifer, or municipal water if it exists.

The geography is not uniform. USGS work on southeastern Michigan found arsenic above 10 µg/L in hundreds of private wells across about ten eastern and southeastern counties, often in the Mississippian Marshall Sandstone or in glacial deposits derived from it. That is a reason to test at least once (MDHHS says every 3–5 years), not a map of your lot. Ask the health department what they see in your township.

Nitrate is the farm-and-septic test. The federal MCL is 10 mg/L as nitrogen. Infants are the acute concern. Partial chemistry at EGLE ($18) covers nitrate/nitrite plus the aesthetic ions (chloride, sulfate, iron, hardness, sodium, fluoride) that explain staining and taste.

MDHHS runs a Care for MiWell Sampling Project that offers free testing to randomly selected private-well owners. That is an invitation in the mail, not a walk-up clinic. If you did not get a letter, you still test on your own dime through county, EGLE, or a certified lab.

Hold times (the Friday trap)

Bacteria is on a short clock. EGLE stopped accepting total coliform and E. coli samples on Fridays effective October 1, 2025, so they can actually reach you (and the health department) if the result is positive. In-person bacteria: Monday–Thursday 8:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Overnight ship Monday–Wednesday to arrive by Thursday. Surface-water E. coli is even tighter (6 hours to the lab; not this page’s private-well path).

The holding time is printed on the bottle. Samples that miss it are rejected. EGLE’s FAQ: if you cannot return the sample within 24 hours, refrigerate it for 8 hours when possible. Do not freeze it. Frozen samples are rejected. You must write collector, date, and time (a.m./p.m.) on the form or they cannot tell whether you made the hold.

County clocks we verified: Saginaw wants delivery within 24 hours and only takes drinking-water samples Monday–Wednesday. LMAS wants bacteria within 30 hours and is closed Friday. Kalamazoo’s results page flags samples older than about 30 hours. Plan the collection day around receiving hours, not around your Saturday free time.

Metals and nitrate are more patient. Bacteria is not. A voided sample is the clock, not a conspiracy.

Mail-in kits that work from Michigan

Independent mail-in labs ship to and from Michigan as ordinary domestic US kits. They email a PDF. They are not selling you a softener in the same breath. Listed prices we checked on August 29, 2026:

Those are listed prices, not coupons. Kits change. Read the current product page before you buy. PFAS is usually a separate kit. EGLE’s own PFAS test is $290 on the current state schedule if you would rather stay in-state.

Side by side for a Michigan well

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Typical paths for a Michigan private well in 2026. Not a bid.
County health lab EGLE Drinking Water Laboratory Local EGLE-certified drop-off Mail-in (Tap Score / NTL)
Best for Cheap annual bacteria (and nitrate, where they run it) if you are in a county with an onsite lab Statewide homeowner kits: bacteria, partial chemistry, arsenic, metals, PFAS, with published state fees Lender-named local lab, or a drop-off closer than Lansing Broader panel and a PDF without finding a walk-in desk
PDF? Ask how the county sends results. Saginaw will email if you give an address. LMAS mails or emails. Mailed, and emailed if you put an address on the form Yes, if you ask Yes. Email is the product
Sales visit? No No No, if you stayed on the EGLE list and not a treatment dealer No
Lender / CoC? Often too narrow. Ask the underwriter. Washtenaw’s sale practice is a county rule, not a substitute for a named lab A state-certified analysis. Still ask the underwriter about chain-of-custody and the analyte list Usually what the bank means, if they named the lab and form Sometimes not. Ask before you sample

Real estate and lenders

Michigan requires a bacteria test when a private well is constructed. After that, routine testing is on you. There is no single statewide “must test these analytes at sale” list we can quote. Practice is lender- and county-driven. Washtenaw’s published handout says residential wells of homes being sold in that county need bacteria testing; that is Washtenaw, not every county. Confirm the lab, the analyte list, and the form with the underwriter before you fill a bottle. A mail-in kit can be a perfectly good health file and still bounce at the bank. EGLE is a certified lab; it is not automatically the chain-of-custody path your closing attorney named.

Look up the well itself in Wellogic / scanned well records from EGLE’s private-well page if you do not have the construction log.

Remind me to test my well every year

CDC and EPA say to test a private well at least once a year. We’ll send one email a year, about when your test is due, with your state’s lab options.

We only use your email for the yearly reminder. Unsubscribe anytime.

Thanks, you’re on the list. We’ll email you once a year when it’s time to test your well. Nothing else.

What to do in Michigan

  1. Call county environmental health. Use the MALPH directory. If you are in Kalamazoo, Saginaw, Oakland, Washtenaw, or LMAS, the rows above are the walk-up path. Elsewhere, ask anyway, then call EGLE.
  2. If you want the state kit, call EGLE at 517-335-8184. Order bacteria plus partial chemistry. Add arsenic if you have never tested it, especially in eastern and southeastern Michigan. Do not collect bacteria on Thursday night for a Friday drop-off — they will not take it.
  3. If you want a local certified drop-off, open EGLE’s certification PDFs, pick the scope you need, then call. Ask about residential samples and Friday bacteria rules.
  4. If you just want a PDF this month, use Tap Score / SimpleLab or National Testing Laboratories (Watercheck). Read the hold-time instructions. Do not collect the bacteria bottle on Friday.
  5. Match the panel to the land. Bacteria and nitrate every year. Arsenic every 3–5 years (sooner if you have never tested). Lead on that same interval. PFAS at least once; call MDHHS if you might be in an investigation area. Enter the numbers in Be Well Informed, then call the health department — not a softener salesman — if something is over a limit.

Not this if…

  • A lender named a local lab and a chain-of-custody form. Use that lab. Do not substitute a mail-in kit or an EGLE homeowner kit and hope.
  • Someone offered a free in-home “test” that ends in a softener pitch. That is not on this page. See the Home Depot free-kit comparison.
  • You only wanted a strip from the hardware aisle. Fine as screening-only. It is not a certified analysis.
  • You expected a full statewide lab phone book with hours. We refused to invent one. EGLE’s PDFs plus a phone call is the honest path until we verify individual commercial labs take homeowners.

Related: Florida · North Carolina · PFAS 533 / 537.1 · Minnesota certified labs · Pennsylvania certified labs · Texas certified labs · Home Depot free kit vs a certified lab · How it works · back to the directory.