Quick answer: in Boston, you set up your own electric and internet, but water is often the landlord's bill by law. Here's the full checklist so nothing gets missed before move-in day.
The Boston Utility Timeline: What to Call and When
Most people wait until the week of the move to think about utilities, then discover a technician can't come out for ten days. Work backward from move-in day instead.
| Utility | Set Up By | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Electric (Eversource) | 2-3 weeks ahead | Same-week service is possible but not guaranteed |
| Gas (National Grid) | 2-3 weeks ahead | Slower near winter and September 1 |
| Water/sewer (BWSC) | Confirm with landlord first | Often already in the landlord's name |
| Internet | 1-2 weeks ahead | Installer appointments book out fastest |
| Trash/recycling | Day of move-in | City service, no signup needed for most units |
If your move lands anywhere near September 1st, push every one of these dates earlier. Utility call centers and internet installers see the same crunch the moving companies do, and slots for that first week of September disappear fast.
Is Eversource Really Your Only Electric Option?
There's no shopping around for a different electric utility in Boston. Eversource is the sole electric distributor for the city, covering Boston along with most of eastern Massachusetts. You can still pick a competitive energy supplier for the generation portion of your bill, but Eversource delivers the power and handles outages no matter who supplies it.
Setting up service is simple: an address, a move-in date, and a few minutes online or on the phone. New service typically activates within a business day or two of your requested date, though same-day starts aren't guaranteed, so don't leave this for the morning of the move.
One thing worth double-checking before you call: some older triple-deckers still run partial knob-and-tube wiring or shared meters between units. Neither one blocks you from opening an account, but a shared meter means you'll want written confirmation from the landlord about which unit's usage you're actually paying for. It's a five-minute question that saves an argument over a bill later.
Do You Actually Need to Set Up Gas?
Not always, and this is where a lot of Boston renters get tripped up. If your building has gas heat or a gas stove, National Grid is almost certainly the provider, since it operates as Boston Gas across the city. Some triple-deckers bundle heat and hot water into the rent, which means the landlord keeps the gas account in their name for the whole building. Others expect each unit to carry its own account.
The fix is a two-minute question to your landlord or leasing office before you assume either way: is gas included, or do I need to open my own account? Guessing wrong means either paying twice or showing up to a cold apartment.
Winter movers should pay closer attention here than anyone. A gas mix-up in July means a slightly annoying phone call. The same mix-up in January means no heat the first night in a new place, and National Grid's queue for new-service calls runs longest exactly when the weather makes that worst.
Who Pays for Water in a Boston Rental?
This is the one that surprises people who've moved from other cities. In most of the country, the tenant opens the water account. In Boston, the opposite is usually true.
Under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 186, Section 22, a landlord can only bill a tenant directly for water if three things are all true: a licensed plumber installed a submeter for that specific unit, the unit has low-flow fixtures, and the lease clearly and separately states the tenant is responsible. Miss any one of those conditions and the water bill legally belongs to the landlord, whether or not the lease tries to say otherwise.
In practice, that means most Boston apartments, especially older multi-family buildings without individual water meters, never require the tenant to touch Boston Water and Sewer Commission at all. Confirm this with your landlord before move-in, and get it in writing if there's any ambiguity, the same way you'd document the condition of your unit for your security deposit.
Which Internet Provider Actually Covers Your Block?
Coverage varies more by block than most people expect. Xfinity reaches nearly the entire city, Verizon Fios covers roughly two-thirds of addresses, and Astound Broadband (formerly RCN) is concentrated in a smaller footprint, according to BroadbandNow's Boston coverage data. Fixed-wireless providers like Starry are building-specific rather than citywide, so a provider that serves your friend's building three blocks away might not reach yours at all.
| Provider | Starting Price | Max Speed | Approx. Boston Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Xfinity | ~$30/mo | 300 Mbps | ~99.7% |
| Verizon Fios | ~$50/mo | 300 Mbps | ~68.4% |
| Astound (RCN) | ~$20/mo | 300 Mbps | ~42.7% |
| Starry | ~$30/mo | 200 Mbps | Building-specific |
Check availability at your exact address before you book, not just your neighborhood. Then schedule the install appointment early, since technician windows fill up faster than the electric and gas transfers do.
Trash and Recycling: The One You Don't Have to Call For
Unlike the other four, trash and recycling in most Boston residential buildings runs on the city's standard pickup schedule, not a utility account you open yourself. Larger buildings sometimes contract private hauling instead, so it's worth a quick check with the landlord on pickup day and bin placement, particularly if you're arriving mid-week and don't want boxes piling up on a narrow sidewalk.
What Happens If You Skip This Step
We've unloaded trucks into apartments with no power on more than once, because the tenant assumed the landlord had handled it or figured they'd deal with it "sometime that week." It's not something a moving crew can fix once the truck is empty and the elevator's been returned to the building super. A cold, dark apartment on move-in night is a genuinely bad way to end a moving day you already paid for.
That's really the whole case for doing this two or three weeks out instead of the morning of. Pricing that's locked in before the truck shows up removes one kind of moving-day surprise; a dead outlet or no hot water is the other kind, and it's on you to close that gap before the crew arrives. If you're planning a local move anywhere in the city, put utility setup on the calendar the same day you book the truck, not the week after.
Quick Move-Day Checklist
Before the truck arrives, confirm: electric is active in your name, gas is either active or confirmed included in rent, water responsibility is documented with your landlord, internet is scheduled or already live, and you know your building's trash pickup day. Five confirmations, none of them last-minute, and move-in day stops being the day you find out something's missing.
NoTimeMover is fully insured, and your price is locked in before the crew ever shows up, so utility surprises are the only kind left to plan around. Handle the checklist above a few weeks out and move-in day actually goes the way you pictured it.