Sourced from R.61-56 (amended May 23, 2025), SCDES permitting documentation and form D-1740 (rev. 07/2026), and each county’s own ordinances — last checked August 2026.
Why South Carolina Is Different From Its Neighbors
If you have dealt with septic permitting in Georgia or North Carolina, reset your expectations. In Georgia, twelve counties in a single health district each set their own fee. In South Carolina, all 46 counties share one fee, one form and one intake queue.
Where every application goes: ATTN: OSWW, SCDES, 2600 Bull Street, Columbia, SC 29201
Statewide phone: 1-855-731-2504
Online: epermitting.des.sc.gov · Form: D-1740, rev. 07/2026
Fee: $150 (R.61-56 § 102.2, amended effective May 27, 2022)
A Professional Soil Classifier may do the evaluation privately for up to three times that fee — capped at $450. People use it to skip the queue, and the queue is real: a 700-permit backlog in April 2023, and coastal counties running six to fourteen weeks behind.
More detail on the process is on our South Carolina septic permit process page, and on the agency change on our DHEC is now SCDES page.
Counties We Cover
| County | Main towns | What is unusual there |
|---|---|---|
| Horry | Myrtle Beach, Conway | 908 septic repairs funded since 2011 — you may qualify |
| Charleston | Charleston, Mount Pleasant | Failing systems must connect to sewer where available |
| Berkeley | Moncks Corner, Goose Creek | Shared septic banned; county holds a 5-year surety bond |
| Dorchester | Summerville, St. George | Septic banned in major subdivisions under 5 acres |
| Colleton | Walterboro, Edisto Island | Free repair or replacement on Edisto Island |
| Kershaw | Camden, Lake Wateree | Tank must be pumped and inspected before sale |
| Dillon | Dillon | A septic tank is unlawful inside the city limits |
| Beaufort | Beaufort, Bluffton, Hilton Head | Project SAFE has helped 600+ families off septic |
| Newberry | Newberry, Whitmire | Sewer within 300 ft? No repairs allowed — connect |
| Clarendon | Manning | Lot size scales: 10,000 / 20,000 / 30,000 sq ft |
| Marion | Marion, Mullins, Nichols | A real 10,000 sq ft floor where the state sets none |
| Greenville | Greenville, Greer | The county stopped taking septic applications in 2020 |
| Lexington | Lexington, Irmo, Chapin | Dominion forbids septic below the 360-ft Lake Murray contour |
| Aiken | Aiken, North Augusta | Savannah River Site: no off-site well contamination found |
| Orangeburg | Orangeburg | No septic permit, no 911 address |
| Florence | Florence, Lake City | Its own “Environmental Services” office is animal services |
| Darlington | Darlington, Hartsville | 18,508 water taps, 726 sewer connections |
| Williamsburg | Kingstree | 2,800 water taps, 67 sewer — sewer rarely blocks a permit |
| Sumter | Sumter, Mayesville, Pinewood | Zoning minimums do not change with sewer availability; the county’s own 2040 plan says poor soils limit many new systems |
| Bamberg | Bamberg, Denmark, Olar | Streamside buffers ban tanks, drainfields and repair areas; the code sets the connection distance at both 1,500 and 200 feet |
| Marlboro | Bennettsville, McColl, Clio | Development ordinances are image-only scans we could not read; steepest population decline of any SC county |
| Richland | Columbia, Blythewood, Eastover | Dominion prohibits septic below Lake Murray’s 360-foot contour; the county code itself is silent on septic |
| Jasper | Ridgeland, Hardeeville | No county ordinance found; Hardeeville drives a $600 million-plus BJWSA capital program |
| Georgetown | Georgetown, Murrells Inlet, Pawleys Island | The utility says “water and/or sewer” without separating them; the Murrells Inlet bacteria story is stormwater |
We are adding counties as we verify them. We publish a county page when we have primary-source ordinance text, not before — which is slower, and is the reason we can tell you which figures we are unsure of.
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The Six-Inch Rule — the One Number Every Homeowner Should Know
South Carolina requires a minimum of six inches of separation between the deepest point of effluent application and the zone of saturation, for systems under 1,500 gallons per day (R.61-56 § 200.3).
- South Carolina — 6 inches
- North Carolina — 18 inches coastal, 12 inches inland
- Georgia — 24 inches
- Alabama — 24 inches
South Carolina permits systems on ground its neighbors would refuse. That is not a loophole — it is the written standard. It is also why coastal failures are common and largely invisible: as one coastal geologist put it, “98 percent of the failures in the coastal zone… you’re not going to see.” Our coastal and high water table page goes into what to do about it.
Two Statewide Rules That Cost People Money
The reserve area. Under § 200.7 a new system must reserve “a usable repair or replacement area equivalent to at least fifty (50) percent of the size of the original system” — 100 percent for community systems. Your lot must hold the tank, the drainfield, and half a drainfield again, while meeting every setback. On tight lots, the reserve area is what fails.
Sewer blocks a permit — but there is no distance. Section 300 bars a new permit, and a repair, where a treatment facility is “accessible.” The state never says how far that is. It only says what accessible is not: “where annexation or easements to cross adjacent property are required to connect… the wastewater treatment facility shall not be considered accessible.” So every mandatory-connection distance in South Carolina is local — 150 feet in the City of Dillon, 200 feet in Clarendon County, 300 feet under the Newberry County water and sewer authority, 500 feet in Mount Pleasant. Check your own city as well as your county.
Who Will Help Pay for a Septic Repair
This is the least-known and most valuable part of the picture. Several South Carolina programs will fund repairs, and eligibility usually runs by watershed or address, not by county line.
- Horry County — the Horry Soil and Water Conservation District has funded 908 septic repairs and 282 sewer tie-ons since 2011 under Clean Water Act Section 319 grants, with a phase beginning 2025 targeting 43 households. Eligibility is by subwatershed. Details.
- Edisto Island (spanning Charleston and Colleton counties) — free inspections and pump-outs, and repair or replacement at zero cost for failing systems in priority areas, explicitly including heirs’ property and long-term renters. Details.
- Mount Pleasant — a $4,500 utility credit plus a $4,500 town match, against an average conversion cost of around $10,000. Details.
- Hilton Head — Project SAFE has distributed over $4 million to more than 600 families since 1999. The town’s own ARPA-funded program is paused to new applications; Project SAFE is the route.
- Lexington County runs a septic repair grant program — but it is currently closed, with funding possibly returning in 2028. We would rather tell you that than let you apply into a closed window. Details.
- USDA Section 504 repair loans and grants are available in rural South Carolina year-round: loans up to $40,000 at 1% over 20 years, grants up to $10,000 for owners aged 62 or older. The program standard is removing health and safety hazards; it does not name septic explicitly, so ask.
More on funding routes on our South Carolina septic financial assistance page.
Two Things About the Record Itself
South Carolina destroys septic permit records after five years. The paperwork on an older system may not exist any more. Get a copy of your own permit and keep it somewhere you will find it in fifteen years.
Nobody knows how many South Carolina homes are on septic. The last official figure is the 1990 Census — about 40 percent statewide — because the Census dropped the question after 1990 and nothing replaced it. Asked for a statewide total, the state’s own septic program official said “I don’t think we could ever get the answer to” it. So when you see a confident county-level septic percentage online, it is almost always 1990 data reprinted without the date. Beaufort County’s widely quoted “37 percent” is exactly this: a 1990 Census figure republished in a 2002 report, now 36 years old. We would rather give you no number than that one.
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