I recently heard a story about an unusual law suit in Italy involving a traveler and a high end hotel. LSS, a women who was dining at an Italian hotel was refused a glass of tap water and told she had to pay for bottled acqua . The guest sued, but lost in court as there is no law in Italy requiring restaurants to provide free water.

Having been overcharged for water, even tap water, in Italy I was not surprised by the verdict. But I was intrigued by the question: Where in the world are restaurants required to provide free water. Here in North America water is always offered and usually the first thing provided by servers. And I’ve found in dozens of countries that a request for water usually results in free water, although in some places, such as Russia and Hungary, servers need to be prodded a bit.

The map above shows where in the world restaurants have a legal requitement to offer free tap water and where they don’t. Of course there is nothing stopping restaurants in areas where it is not legally required doing so, just they don’t have to.