The Grand Strand
Check turf rebate eligibility in Horry County
The short version
Are there any rebates for artificial turf in Myrtle Beach or Horry County?
We have not verified an artificial-turf rebate in the Horry County sources reviewed. GSWSA's published conservation advice does not list one, but that does not establish that every provider or private program offers none. Confirm the program, synthetic-turf eligibility and any advance approval with the provider serving your address before including a rebate in your budget.
Budget without an unconfirmed rebate
Our review of GSWSA's conservation pages and the Horry County, Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach codes found no advertised artificial-turf rebate. That is the limit of the finding: an ordinance search is not a complete inventory of utility programs, and one authority's website does not cover every water account on the Grand Strand.
Start with the provider named on your water bill. Ask whether it has a current landscape-conversion incentive, whether artificial turf qualifies, and whether an inspection or written approval must happen before the existing lawn is removed. A program for living plants or irrigation equipment may not cover the turf installation you are considering.
Keep any unconfirmed incentive outside the installation budget. If a provider, HOA, builder or manufacturer offers one, obtain its current terms and confirm that your address, materials and planned start date qualify. Funding and deadlines belong to that program; a rebate described for another town is not enough.
Where the "ask about rebates" line comes from
That line is imported. It comes from the arid West, where landscape-conversion rebates are real and are a normal part of a turf sales pitch. We also install in the Denver metro, and ran the same search there. Those programs are real money: Castle Rock Water pays $3.25 a square foot for a low-water landscape, Aurora Water $3.00.
Now read the fine print, because this is the part the imported copy leaves out. Every Denver-metro rebate whose rules we read excludes artificial turf, with one exception. Five providers say so in writing. Denver Water's HOA and commercial program will not fund "designs that include artificial turf". Aurora's rebate manual lists "Artificial turf" in its prohibited column and requires 50 percent living plant coverage. Castle Rock Water: "Artificial turf does not qualify for any part of the rebate." Highlands Ranch: "Artificial turf replacements are no longer eligible for rebate." Erie: "Artificial Turf is not eligible for this rebate." Resource Central, which administers lawn replacement for more than thirty Front Range providers, sets the rule that catches most of the rest: project areas must be "replaced with at least 50% waterwise plants." Colorado's state Turf Replacement Program, at C.R.S. 37-60-135, barred applicants from using the money to replace turf with "artificial turf" before it stopped taking applications in March 2025. The one metro provider we found that does pay for artificial turf is the City of Thornton.
So even where the rebate exists, the imported claim is usually wrong on its own terms. Arizona and Nevada get named a lot in this kind of copy too; this page does not cover them.
Confirm stormwater classification before counting on a fee reduction
Artificial turf is not named anywhere in the Horry County Code. But the county's stormwater utility ordinance defines impervious surface at Sec. 17.7-16, and its list of examples includes "compacted gravel and soil surfaces" and "awnings and other fabric or plastic coverings". A turf system is a plastic covering over a compacted stone base. Both of those phrases are sitting in that list.
That matters because Sec. 17.7-17 bills the stormwater service charge off impervious percentage. Non-single-family parcels get a development intensity factor from a published table — 0.95 at 90 to 100 percent impervious, down to 0.01 below 1 percent — applied per 20,000 square feet of land area, with a minimum charge of $0.75 a month. On a commercial parcel, a big turf area can push you up a tier rather than down one. That is our reading of the definition, not a ruling from the county.
Sec. 17.7-18 does authorize a credit for on-site detention or retention that mitigates the impact of impervious surfaces. Whether a free-draining turf system over a stone reservoir qualifies is not established. We do not hold the county's credit manual, and we hold no written determination from the county's stormwater office. Do not count on that credit until the county puts it in writing.
What actually changes your water bill here
The real number is on GSWSA's own drought notice. After the South Carolina State Climatology Office declared severe drought in the Pee Dee basin — Horry, Marion and Dillon counties — GSWSA's policy update effective 1 July 2026 states that "excess charges will begin after 6,000 gallons of usage", down from the normal 8,000. If you irrigate a lawn, you now reach the excess tier a quarter sooner than before. That is a live change to your bill, and no check from anyone was involved.
The rest of GSWSA's asks are requests, not law: irrigate outside 6:00 to 9:00 a.m., skip Mondays, odd house numbers Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, even numbers Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Myrtle Beach is different. Its drought ordinance, Chapter 21, Article VI, adopted under the South Carolina Drought Response Act of 2000, runs four phases, and at the severe phase the city moves to "mandatory restrictions on non-essential usage" with a 20 percent reduction target. Conway and North Myrtle Beach have parallel ordinances.
Be sober about the size of the saving. Myrtle Beach averages 53.56 inches of rain a year. The only published per-square-foot conversion figure we could find is Colorado's — Resource Central puts it at 10 gallons per square foot of lawn per year — and a Front Range number does not carry over to a coastal plain that gets more than four feet of rain. If the water bill is your main reason for doing this, run the numbers from your own bills before you sign.
How to test any rebate claim in ninety seconds
Ask for the program name, current rules, how the payment is calculated and written confirmation that your proposed synthetic-turf installation qualifies. Also check funding availability, application deadlines and whether approval must precede removal or installation.
Thornton is the model of what a real one looks like. It pays up to $2.00 a square foot, capped at $2,000 for the life of a residential lot, and it publishes a dedicated artificial turf rules document: a minor development permit before installation, a minimum eight-year fade warranty, backing that drains at least two inches an hour, PFAS-free documentation, three inches of compacted aggregate, seams glued rather than sewn.
If a contractor cannot identify the program and its eligibility terms, leave the proposed rebate out of the budget until the provider confirms it. Our search did not establish every Horry County provider's position and did not cover Georgetown County or the North Carolina towns just over the state line. Use the water provider and permitting jurisdiction for your actual parcel, including a Murrells Inlet address. Call 303-349-2368 to discuss the installation scope.
Common questions
Does Grand Strand Water & Sewer Authority pay a rebate for replacing my lawn with artificial turf?
We did not find an artificial-turf rebate listed in GSWSA's published conservation advice. Confirm current programs directly with GSWSA if it serves your address. Ask specifically about synthetic turf and approval before removal; an offer for irrigation equipment or living landscaping may have different eligibility.
Will artificial turf lower my stormwater fee in Horry County?
Not that we can show, and it may do the opposite. Sec. 17.7-16 names compacted gravel surfaces and plastic coverings as impervious, and Sec. 17.7-17 ties the non-single-family service charge to impervious percentage. Sec. 17.7-18 allows a credit for on-site detention or retention, but whether a turf system qualifies is unproven — ask the county's stormwater office for that in writing before anyone puts it in a quote.
I have seen turf rebates of $1 to $3 a square foot. Where is that actually true?
In parts of the West, and mostly not for plastic. In the Denver metro, where we also install, Castle Rock Water pays $3.25 a square foot and Aurora Water $3.00 — but both exclude artificial turf in writing, as do Denver Water's HOA program, Highlands Ranch and Erie. The City of Thornton is the one exception we found, at up to $2.00 a square foot with a $2,000 lifetime cap per residential lot.
Is there a rebate on the North Carolina side, in Brunswick County?
We do not know. Our search covered Horry County jurisdictions only — the county code, Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach and GSWSA. We have not checked Brunswick County or the towns of Shallotte, Calabash, Carolina Shores, Sunset Beach or Ocean Isle Beach, and we have not checked Georgetown County either.
