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While writing my article on 7 interesting facts about England, one of the things that surprised me about London was the abundance of pay toilets in England and the rest of Europe.
Pay Toilet in Berlin – from Wikimedia Commons
This is probably obvious to people who have spent more time in Europe, but I had not even heard of this as something that still existed. So I was surprised to learn that it was not that long ago that pay toilets were prevalent in the US as well. According to the Wall Street Journal, in 1974, there were over 50,000 pay toilets in the USA
The end of pay toilets in America
In 1970, the Committee to End Pay Toilets in America (CEPTIA) was founded by 19 year old Ira Gessler and his brother Frank in Dayton, Ohio. Over the course of the next several years, CEPTIA engaged in a grassroots crusade to end pay toilets in America and fulfill their group’s mission statement to
“Pay toilets are an unethical infringement on basic human rights.”
Originally laws to declare pay toilets illegal could not get enough votes to pass. A bill introduced by a California Assemblywoman “went down the drain in defeat” according to the Associate Press. Undoubtedly, the companies that manufactured pay toilets and the locks that go on them were against such bills. The largest such company was (and is) called Nik-o-Lok (it’s still in business today). Estimates put the revenue from pay toilets at somewhere in the neighborhood of $30 million each year ($161 million in 2014 dollars).
But CEPTIA was undeterred and eventually successful. In 1973, Chicago became the first major municipality to ban pay toilets. After a court challenge that upheld the law, many other cities and states followed suit. By 1980, pay toilets in the US were all but extinct.
An interesting read on the subject is over at Pacific Standard
Had you ever used a pay toilet in the US?
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Interesting! Never knew we had pay toilets in the US. I was born in 1974 so I supposed I would’ve been too young to remember if my family ever did encounter a pay toilet here in the US.
Right – I’m similar in age so I had never heard of pay toilets in America either!
Excuse me, as a European, what do you do in an American city if you need the toilet? Surely not having a facility is an unethical infringement on basic human rights, not the other way round.
Typically in the US, just about every public establishment will have a restroom that is available to the public. Certainly any restaurant or other place that serves food, but even office buildings will typically have restrooms available off the lobby. It’s somewhat different / more restricted in urban areas but generally that is the practice
Just use any toilet you want lol Seinfeld had an episode about this where George has a listing of all the good toilets in the city
Heh – I remember that episode – that was a good one
There’s an app for that…Charmin’s Sit or Squat allows users to rate cleanliness of public toilets.
That is a good read. I didnt know the US had paid toilet. I thought that is a China thing.
I remember paid toilets in the MSP airport circa 1957. Yeah I’m old…..but I was a kid then and after putting my coin in the slot to enter, the stall door self-locked. Couldn’t figure out how to open it—had to crawl under to get out.
A flight attendant (aka stewardess back then) was with me–no extra charge– since I was what’s now known as an “unaccompanied minor” awaiting a connecting flight. Glad we made the plane!