Tap water in Cape Verde

Not safe to drink

This reflects the CDC's travel health guidance for Cape Verde; no WHO coverage figure is published for this country. National figures describe a country, not the tap in front of you.

What the sources say

US CDC Travelers' Health

Advises travellers that tap water is generally not safe to drink in Cape Verde.

Numbeo

0.0/100 on the water drinkability and accessibility index, which Numbeo reads as “Very low”. This one is crowdsourced from residents rather than measured.

Lonely Planet

Tap water is best avoided in Cabo Verde as it can be contaminated. Bottled water is widely available, but to avoid the waste of plastic bottles, consider using available water sources, which are then filtered or chemically treated (ie with iodine tablets).

This is a national picture, and it varies. Some cities treat their water to a standard the country as a whole does not reach. Where the water is not safe, boiling, filtering or sealed bottles are the usual options, and ice and raw salad washed in tap water carry the same risk as the water itself.

What bottled water costs you here

Drinking tap water instead of bottled would save one adult about 496$ a year in Cape Verde, and keep several hundred plastic bottles out of circulation.

Work out your own saving

Elsewhere in Africa