Reporting problems to the city
How to actually reach the City of Fredericton: there is no 311 and no online report-a-problem form. Potholes, missed garbage, dead streetlights, bylaw complaints, water main breaks and park issues all go through Service Fredericton, (506) 460-2020 or service@fredericton.ca, weekdays, at 397 Queen Street. Plus a jurisdiction guide for the half of “call the city” problems that aren’t the city’s.
Updated
City services
Reporting problems to the city
Quick answer
Fredericton has no 311 line and no online “report a problem” form. Nearly everything, potholes, missed pickups, burnt-out streetlights, bylaw and noise complaints, park and trail issues, water and sewer trouble, goes through one door: Service Fredericton, (506) 460-2020 or service@fredericton.ca, Monday to Friday, 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at 397 Queen Street. That same number is the 24-hour line for water and sewer emergencies. For a crime in progress, fire, or a medical emergency it is always 911; for a power outage or downed line it is NB Power, 1-800-663-6272. Before you dial, know that a fair share of “the city” problems are actually the province’s.
Last verified July 14, 2026
One door, one number: Service Fredericton
Move here from a bigger city and you will spend a confused week looking for the 311 app. There isn’t one. Fredericton runs a leaner operation, and instead of a self-serve portal that quietly routes your pothole into a ticketing queue, it has a front desk staffed by actual humans: Service Fredericton. The number is (506) 460-2020, the email is service@fredericton.ca, and between them they are the channel for basically every service request the city handles.
There is also no online “report a problem” form in the way people expect, no map where you drop a pin on a broken thing and walk away. You call, or you email. That sounds old-fashioned, and it is, but it works surprisingly well, because you get a person who can tell you on the spot whether your problem is even the city’s to fix. The whole point of the single number is that you don’t need to know which department owns your issue. You describe the thing in plain language, and staff route it. Roads, parks, bylaw, water, transit, one line sorts it.
Save the number in your phone under something you’ll actually find at 8 a.m. when the plow has buried your car or the garbage truck sailed past. And bookmark this page, because the second half of it is the part nobody tells you: knowing which problems belong to the city at all.
What to have ready before you call or email
The difference between “fixed this week” and “fixed eventually” is almost always the quality of your location. City crews cannot fix a pothole reported as “the bad one on Regent.” Regent Street is long. Before you dial, get these together:
- The exact location. Street name plus the nearest civic (house) number, or the nearest cross street. For a pothole, which lane and which direction of travel. For a streetlight, the pole number if there is one stamped on it.
- What, specifically, is wrong. “Streetlight out” versus “streetlight flickering all night” are different work orders. Facts, not adjectives.
- When you noticed it, and whether it’s getting worse, a hairline crack in the road is a spring problem; a sinkhole is a today problem.
- Your contact info, so a crew can follow up if they can’t find it or need access.
For anything visual, graffiti, an overgrown lot, a sunken catch basin, illegal dumping, email is your friend, because you can attach a photo. A clear picture with a recognizable landmark does more than five minutes of description. Send it to service@fredericton.ca with the address in the subject line. For bylaw complaints, add the date and time you observed the problem; enforcement runs on documented specifics, not vibes.
One honest caveat: email is not monitored around the clock. If water is coming up through your basement floor at 2 a.m., you phone (506) 460-2020, that line reaches the on-call water and sewer crew 24 hours a day. Email is for things that can wait for business hours.
The Service Centre: hours, location, and what you can do at the counter
If you’d rather talk to someone in person, or you need to hand over a cheque, pick up a licence, or sort out a bill face to face, the Service Centre lives at City Hall, 397 Queen Street, in the heart of downtown. It’s open Monday to Friday, 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., excluding holidays. A small but important detail that trips up first-timers: the main business entrance is at the back of the building, not the grand front doors on Queen. Park on-street or in the York Street Carpark and walk around.
At the counter you can pay water and sewer bills, parking tickets, building permits, recreation registrations, transit passes and dog licences, and generally get a human to walk you through a form. They take cash, debit, credit (Visa, Mastercard, Amex), money orders and cheques. It is, in the modest way of a mid-sized city, a genuinely good front desk, you rarely leave without an answer, even if the answer is “that’s the province, here’s their number.” For the bigger picture of how the building itself works, council, committees, planning, see our city council guide.
What you can do online vs what needs a phone call
Reporting problems is a phone-and-email affair, but transactions are increasingly online, through a portal called Access Fredericton (accessfredericton.ca), the city’s self-service system. It’s where the paperwork side of city life lives. What you can generally do without picking up the phone:
- Permits and applications, building, plumbing and related permits, plus trade-name searches and reservations and contractor registration.
- Payments, water and sewer bills, parking violations, recreation fees and registrations, some of it through Access Fredericton and some through Service New Brunswick’s online payment portal or pre-authorized bank withdrawal.
- Records, things like criminal record check requests can be started online.
What still needs a call or an email: reporting anything broken, unsafe, missed, or complained-about. There is no online form for a pothole, a missed pickup, a noise complaint, or a dead streetlight. Those are Service Fredericton, (506) 460-2020 or service@fredericton.ca. The rule of thumb is simple, if you’re paying for something or applying for something, try online first; if you’re reporting a problem, phone or email. When you’re unsure whether a permit is even required before you pay a fee, a quick call to confirm is never wasted time.
The right number for the right problem
Half the battle is dialling the correct line the first time. Service Fredericton will happily redirect you, but you’ll get help faster by starting in the right place. Keep this handy:
| Problem | Who to call | Number |
|---|---|---|
| Pothole, missed garbage/recycling, dead streetlight, bylaw or noise complaint, park or trail issue, graffiti, general inquiries | Service Fredericton | (506) 460-2020 · service@fredericton.ca |
| Water main break, sewer backup, no water, discoloured water (24 hours a day) | Service Fredericton (on-call) | (506) 460-2020 |
| Crime in progress, fire, medical emergency | Emergency | 911 |
| Something that already happened and isn’t dangerous | Fredericton Police (non-emergency) | (506) 460-2300 |
| Parking ticket questions, permits | Parking | (506) 460-2019 |
| Stray, injured or aggressive domestic animal | Animal Control | (506) 363-3320 |
| Power outage, downed line, streetlight the utility owns | NB Power | 1-800-663-6272 |
| Non-emergency health advice, “should I go to the ER?” | Tele-Care | 811 |
| Spring flooding, river levels and forecasts | River Watch | 1-888-561-4048 |
| Highway and road conditions, closures | Provincial 511 | 511 / 511.gnb.ca |
| Not sure who handles it at all | NB 211 (info & referral) | 211 |
How to report the specific things people actually report
Most calls fall into a handful of buckets. Here’s the shortest path for each.
Pothole. Call (506) 460-2020 or email with the street, nearest civic number, lane and direction. Spring thaw brings a long list, so precise locations jump the queue. Chronic road damage on a residential street is a city file; a crater on a numbered provincial highway is not (more on that below).
Missed garbage or recycling. First confirm you had it out correctly and it wasn’t simply the wrong week, blue-week/grey-week mix-ups account for most “missed” pickups. If the truck genuinely skipped you, report it, ideally the same day. Full details on zones and sorting live in our garbage and recycling guide.
Streetlight out. Note the pole number and nearest address. Some poles belong to NB Power rather than the city, but you don’t have to figure that out, Service Fredericton sorts out whose light it is and routes it.
Water main break or sewer backup. This is the one true 24-hour item on the list. Call (506) 460-2020 at any hour and it reaches the on-call crew. A break in the street, no water, sudden low pressure, or brown water are all worth a call, not an email.
Dead animal or wildlife. A dead animal on a city street or in a city park is a city pickup, call Service Fredericton. A stray or aggressive domestic animal is Animal Control, (506) 363-3320. Living wildlife that’s injured, sick, or causing a problem is generally a provincial matter (the Department of Natural Resources), not the city.
Bylaw, noise, parking, or property complaint. Barking dogs, loud parties, illegal parking, unsightly premises, tall grass, property standards, all go to bylaw enforcement via (506) 460-2020. Be specific: address, date, time, exactly what you observed. Most bylaw enforcement is complaint-driven, so if nobody reports it, nothing happens, and chronic problems sometimes need more than one call.
Park or trail issue. Broken playground equipment, a downed tree across a trail, vandalism, a flooded ball diamond, Service Fredericton, with a photo by email if you can.
Graffiti. On city property, report it with a photo and location. On private property it’s the owner’s responsibility, though the city can advise. For safety hazards during a storm, a blocked road, a dangerous limb, call rather than email so it’s seen quickly. And for how the city handles winter specifically, see our snow removal guide.
Who handles what: city vs province vs federal vs NB Power
Here is the single most useful thing on this page, and the reason “just call the city” fails so often: a large share of the problems people blame on city hall belong to someone else entirely. The City of Fredericton handles local, on-the-ground things, the roads and sidewalks it owns, water and sewer, garbage and recycling, transit, parks and trails, zoning, municipal bylaws, and the fire and police services. The province of New Brunswick runs the things that shape your daily life but aren’t local government: schools, hospitals, driver’s licences, courts, property assessment, and most major highways. Ottawa handles passports, EI, CPP, immigration and the like. NB Power keeps the lights on. And your elected representatives split the same way, your MLA is your provincial voice, your MP is your federal one, and your city councillor is the person to email about anything genuinely municipal.
| The issue | Whose job | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| Pothole on a residential/city street | City | Service Fredericton, (506) 460-2020 |
| Pothole on the Trans-Canada or a numbered highway/route | Province | 511 / 511.gnb.ca (Transportation) |
| Water & sewer, garbage, transit, parks, bylaws | City | Service Fredericton, (506) 460-2020 |
| Power outage, downed line, meter/billing | NB Power | 1-800-663-6272 |
| Property assessment (the value your tax is based on) | Province | Service New Brunswick |
| Tax rate on that assessment | City | Council budget (via Service Fredericton) |
| Schools, closures, school buildings | Province | ASD-W / Education (EECD) |
| Hospitals, health care, ambulance | Province | Health / Horizon; 811 for advice |
| Driver’s licence, vehicle registration | Province | Service New Brunswick |
| Passport, EI, CPP, immigration | Federal | Service Canada |
| Injured or nuisance wildlife | Province | Natural Resources (DNRED) |
| A policy problem you want fixed | Your rep | Councillor (city) · MLA (prov) · MP (fed) |
One local wrinkle worth knowing: in the areas annexed into Fredericton in 2023, some services are still being phased in, so in a number of newly amalgamated neighbourhoods the province continues to handle road maintenance and garbage the old way. If you live in one of those areas and you’re not sure, call (506) 460-2020 and ask, that’s exactly the kind of “whose is this?” question Service Fredericton is built to answer. New to town and trying to get oriented? Our moving to Fredericton guide lays out utilities, garbage zones and the rest in the order you actually need them.
Response times, escalation, and when to go up the chain
Set your expectations honestly. Emergencies, water main breaks, sewer backups, storm hazards, get a fast, often same-day response, because they have to. Routine service requests move on the department’s workload and the season. A pothole in April joins a queue thousands long; the same pothole in July gets patched sooner. Bylaw complaints are investigated in the order they come in, and enforcement can take time because it often involves notice and a chance to comply, not an instant fine. None of this is a brush-off; it’s just the reality of a city crew’s week.
If something genuinely falls through the cracks, you reported it, gave a good location, and weeks passed with no action, you have a clear escalation path. First, follow up with Service Fredericton and ask for the status or a reference on your request. Next, email your ward councillor. Councillors read constituent email, and a specific, polite note from someone in their own ward moves things that a second call sometimes can’t; find yours through the council guide. For formal matters, appearing before council, a records request, a complaint about process, the Office of the City Clerk (cityclerk@fredericton.ca, or (506) 460-2020) is the proper channel. Going straight to the mayor on a routine pothole tends to bounce back down to the same crew, so start at the bottom of the ladder and climb only if you have to.
Social media, accessibility, and other ways in
The city is active on social media, Facebook (facebook.com/CityOfFredericton), X/Twitter (@CityFredGov) and Instagram (@cityoffredericton), and those channels are excellent for the outbound stuff: storm updates, closures, plow status, event notices, boil-water advisories. Treat them as a bulletin board, not a complaint desk. Do not report a private problem there, you don’t want your address and your away-on-vacation schedule sitting in a public comment thread, and a tweet isn’t a tracked service request. For anything specific to you, it’s still the phone or email. For genuine emergency alerts, the city also runs the free Voyent Alert! notification service, worth signing up for.
On accessibility: the Service Centre entrance at the back of City Hall is the accessible one, and if you need service in another format or another language, say so when you contact them, staff can make arrangements. Residents who are Deaf, hard of hearing or have a speech disability can reach any of these numbers through Canada’s 711 relay service. And if you’re Deaf or hard of hearing, remember that 911 is reachable by text in New Brunswick after a one-time registration.
Still stuck on who to call? Provincial 211 is a free, confidential information-and-referral line that will point you to the right agency for almost anything, and our own ask Freddy page is there for the questions that don’t fit neatly into any one department. When in doubt, though, the shortest answer is the one at the top of this page: (506) 460-2020. It’s a real person, and they’ve heard weirder questions than yours.
Common questions
Does Fredericton have a 311 number or an online report-a-problem form?
No. Fredericton has neither a 311 line nor an online “report a problem” form. Every service request, potholes, missed garbage, dead streetlights, bylaw and noise complaints, park issues, water and sewer trouble, goes through Service Fredericton at (506) 460-2020 or service@fredericton.ca, Monday to Friday, 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. That same number reaches the on-call crew 24 hours a day for water and sewer emergencies.
What information should I have ready when I report a problem?
The exact location above all: street name plus the nearest civic number or cross street, and for a pothole, the lane and direction. Add what specifically is wrong, when you noticed it, and your contact details. For anything visual, graffiti, an overgrown lot, a broken catch basin, email service@fredericton.ca with a photo and put the address in the subject line. Precise reports get fixed faster than vague ones.
Who do I call after hours for a water main break or sewer backup?
Call (506) 460-2020 at any hour. It’s the same Service Fredericton number, and outside business hours it routes to the 24-hour on-call water and sewer crew. A break in the street, no water, sudden low pressure, or brown water all warrant a phone call rather than an email, which isn’t monitored overnight.
I called “the city” but they said it’s not their problem, why?
Because a lot of what people call the city about is actually the province’s or a utility’s. The city handles local roads and sidewalks, water and sewer, garbage, transit, parks and bylaws. The province handles schools, health, driver’s licences, property assessment and major highways; NB Power handles outages; Ottawa handles passports and EI. A pothole on a residential street is the city’s; a crater on the Trans-Canada is the province’s. When unsure, call (506) 460-2020 or dial 211 and ask.
How long will it take to get something fixed, and how do I escalate?
Emergencies get a fast, often same-day response. Routine requests move on the department’s workload and the season, a spring pothole waits in a long queue. If you gave a good location and weeks pass with nothing, follow up with Service Fredericton for a status, then email your ward councillor, and for formal matters contact the Office of the City Clerk (cityclerk@fredericton.ca). Start low on the ladder and climb only if you have to.
Can I report a problem to the City of Fredericton on social media?
Better not to. The city’s Facebook, X (@CityFredGov) and Instagram accounts are great for outbound updates, closures, storm and plow status, advisories, but they aren’t a tracked complaint channel, and a public comment exposes your personal details. For anything specific to you, use (506) 460-2020 or service@fredericton.ca. Sign up for the free Voyent Alert! service for emergency notifications.
Official sources
Hey Freddy is independent. For official confirmation, these are the primary sources this page was verified against:
- City of Fredericton: Service Centre
- City of Fredericton: Contact Directory
- City of Fredericton: Water & Sewer (24-hour Emergency Service)
- Access Fredericton (Accela Citizen Access portal)
- City of Fredericton: Permits & Licenses
- City of Fredericton: Community Alerts
Get the Hey Freddy week ahead, every Monday
Fredericton’s events for the week, in one short email. Free, unsubscribe anytime.
Subscribe
One email every Monday. Unsubscribe anytime.