Chlorine in drinking water is straightforward to remove, and activated carbon is the standard way to do it: it adsorbs free chlorine efficiently at household flow rates. Before you buy anything, though, find out whether your utility uses chlorine or chloramine, because chloramine is far more stubborn and needs a different specification of filter.
Find out which disinfectant you have
This is the step people skip. Every community water system publishes an annual Consumer Confidence Report describing what is in the supply and how it is treated, and the EPA maintains a finder for those reports. Read yours and look for the disinfectant. Free chlorine dissipates and is easy to filter; chloramine, a chlorine and ammonia compound, is deliberately stable so it survives the distribution system, and it needs catalytic carbon and much longer contact time.
Carbon: the practical answer
Activated carbon is the workhorse. At the sink, a countertop or under sink carbon filter handles drinking and cooking water for very little money. At the main, a whole house carbon tank or a large carbon cartridge takes chlorine out of every tap, which also protects softener resin and stops the smell in the shower. Contact time is what governs performance, so a large bed outperforms a small cartridge, and carbon must be replaced on schedule because exhausted carbon looks identical to new.
The methods that need no equipment
Free chlorine leaves water on its own. A jug left uncovered in the refrigerator overnight loses much of it, and boiling for a few minutes speeds that up considerably. Vitamin C, as ascorbic acid or sodium ascorbate, neutralizes both chlorine and chloramine quickly and is the trick used for filling fish tanks and bath water. None of these are practical for a whole household, but they are free and immediate when you just want a better tasting glass or pitcher tonight.
Removing chlorine is not the same as adding it
Worth stating clearly, because the two intents get confused: many well owners deliberately inject chlorine to control iron, sulfur smell and bacteria, then remove the residual with a carbon filter further down the line. If you are on a well and smell chlorine, either you or a previous owner installed that on purpose. Our best chlorine injection system for well water guide explains that arrangement and where the carbon stage belongs in it.
Questions people ask about how to remove chlorine in drinking water
Does boiling water remove chlorine?
Boiling drives off free chlorine within a few minutes, but it does very little to chloramine, which is why the disinfectant your utility uses matters.
Do refrigerator and pitcher filters remove chlorine?
Yes, both use activated carbon and reduce free chlorine taste well, provided the cartridge is changed on the interval the maker specifies.
How do I remove chloramine instead of chlorine?
Chloramine needs catalytic carbon with long contact time, a larger whole house carbon bed, or chemical neutralization with ascorbic acid.