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How Deep Are Wells in New York? Real Depth Data by County
"How deep will my well need to be?" is one of the hardest well-drilling questions to answer in the abstract, because it depends entirely on local geology. New York publishes its driller's completion reports as open data, so instead of a national average, here is what 128,352 actual residential wells on record report for depth, broken down by county.
Source and method: New York State Department of Environmental Conservation water well completion reports (NYS GIS Clearinghouse), extracted 2026-07-14. Figures include only wells recorded as residential (domestic) use, with a reported depth between 15 and 2,000 ft (to exclude likely data-entry errors). A county is shown only if it has at least 5 qualifying reports. The depth shown is the reported well depth. This dataset carries no completion date, so figures cover all domestic wells on record rather than only recent ones, and DEC notes the driller-submitted data are in most cases not verified. These are figures self-reported by licensed drillers to the state; neither the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation nor this site independently verifies them. Treat this as a planning reference, not a guarantee for any specific property, your own site could sit well outside your county's typical range.
Median well depth by county
"Typical range" is the 10th-to-90th-percentile band, i.e. where 80% of reported wells in that county fell. Counties with fewer than 5 qualifying reports are omitted rather than shown with a misleading precise figure.
| County | Median depth | Typical range (10th-90th pct) | Reports used |
|---|---|---|---|
| Albany | 262 ft | 72-502 ft | 1,367 |
| Allegany | 108 ft | 50-200 ft | 2,226 |
| Broome | 170 ft | 100-320 ft | 1,734 |
| Cattaraugus | 100 ft | 36-175 ft | 2,917 |
| Cayuga | 120 ft | 50-279 ft | 1,460 |
| Chautauqua | 80 ft | 40-145 ft | 3,053 |
| Chemung | 130 ft | 43-240 ft | 964 |
| Chenango | 185 ft | 96-302 ft | 1,716 |
| Clinton | 165 ft | 75-400 ft | 2,153 |
| Columbia | 345 ft | 121-535 ft | 3,583 |
| Cortland | 165 ft | 44-298 ft | 1,218 |
| Delaware | 274 ft | 128-507 ft | 2,550 |
| Dutchess | 330 ft | 155-605 ft | 4,428 |
| Erie | 70 ft | 34-120 ft | 2,357 |
| Essex | 345 ft | 142-625 ft | 1,994 |
| Franklin | 180 ft | 64-520 ft | 1,870 |
| Fulton | 202 ft | 75-435 ft | 1,648 |
| Genesee | 56 ft | 32-100 ft | 871 |
| Greene | 297 ft | 120-573 ft | 2,119 |
| Hamilton | 300 ft | 120-482 ft | 806 |
| Herkimer | 172 ft | 67-400 ft | 1,718 |
| Jefferson | 105 ft | 52-224 ft | 2,389 |
| Lewis | 148 ft | 62-306 ft | 1,005 |
| Livingston | 106 ft | 51-200 ft | 1,099 |
| Madison | 116 ft | 40-297 ft | 2,177 |
| Monroe | 65 ft | 33-155 ft | 559 |
| Montgomery | 200 ft | 76-440 ft | 871 |
| Nassau | 163 ft | 34-430 ft | 136 |
| Niagara | 56 ft | 28-100 ft | 68 |
| Oneida | 100 ft | 40-245 ft | 3,032 |
| Onondaga | 160 ft | 42-340 ft | 2,116 |
| Ontario | 100 ft | 40-200 ft | 1,430 |
| Orange | 290 ft | 160-500 ft | 7,990 |
| Orleans | 44 ft | 29-75 ft | 199 |
| Oswego | 75 ft | 40-138 ft | 2,049 |
| Otsego | 165 ft | 75-300 ft | 1,823 |
| Putnam | 400 ft | 205-705 ft | 1,220 |
| Rensselaer | 320 ft | 146-502 ft | 3,811 |
| Rockland | 225 ft | 145-430 ft | 486 |
| Saratoga | 200 ft | 47-497 ft | 7,744 |
| Schenectady | 240 ft | 104-420 ft | 634 |
| Schoharie | 239 ft | 107-465 ft | 1,235 |
| Schuyler | 100 ft | 38-220 ft | 1,248 |
| Seneca | 100 ft | 40-209 ft | 752 |
| St Lawrence | 120 ft | 63-247 ft | 2,705 |
| Steuben | 120 ft | 41-234 ft | 2,408 |
| Suffolk | 70 ft | 39-140 ft | 10,425 |
| Sullivan | 305 ft | 180-525 ft | 3,740 |
| Tioga | 120 ft | 34-240 ft | 1,789 |
| Tompkins | 140 ft | 55-260 ft | 2,618 |
| Ulster | 270 ft | 145-500 ft | 6,442 |
| Warren | 320 ft | 128-605 ft | 3,212 |
| Washington | 360 ft | 160-560 ft | 4,094 |
| Wayne | 80 ft | 38-137 ft | 585 |
| Westchester | 465 ft | 245-745 ft | 1,003 |
| Wyoming | 80 ft | 37-140 ft | 1,394 |
| Yates | 115 ft | 58-200 ft | 1,112 |
How to use this table
Find your county, then use the median and typical-range figures as a starting point when budgeting with the well drilling cost estimator or reading the cost guide. A driller working in your county day-to-day will still know more about your specific property than a county-wide figure can, ask them how your site compares to the county's typical range, and why, before you commit to a per-foot quote with no depth ceiling.
We build these tables state by state from each state's public completion-report data. See also our Texas well depth by county page.
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