The papillary surface epithelium (PSE) covers the mammalian renal papilla. It has been proposed that water or solute fluxes across the PSE might result in changes in urine or medullary interstitial fluid composition. To study osmotic water and chloride permeabilities, the PSE was dissected from underlying medullary tissue and mounted in a small Ussing chamber. Osmotic water permeability was low (14.2 +/- 3.0 microns/s) and was unaffected by 100 nM vasopressin added to the basolateral surface. In contrast, the PSE showed a substantial chloride permeability of 3.1 +/- 0.4 x 10(-5) cm/s that decreased reversibly to 2.2 +/- 0.3 x 10(-5) cm/s (P less than 0.01) with vasopressin. Vasopressin also reversibly increased the transepithelial resistance of the PSE from 87 +/- 9 to 106 +/- 13 omega.cm2 (P less than 0.02). Apical bumetanide (10(-6) M) had no significant effect on PSE chloride permeability. The apparent Na-Cl permeability ratio (0.75 +/- 0.01) calculated from dilution potential measurements was not affected significantly by vasopressin or apical bumetanide. We conclude that it is unlikely that physiologically significant osmotic water fluxes occur across the papillary surface epithelium. However, the NaCl permeability is sufficiently high that physiologically significant transepithelial NaCl fluxes could occur under conditions associated with reflux of urine backward from the papillary tip.