Abstract Food estate in Central Sumba Regency is one of Indonesia’s Nasional Strategic Projects that aim to increase the national food supply. Groundwater has been the main water supply by residents around the food estate area in Central Sumba Regency. Groundwater exploitation in the research area uses dug wells, bore wells, and springs. They mostly use groundwater for domestic use and irrigation purposes. Aquifer depletion and declining groundwater levels can occur as groundwater is exploited too much due to the growing need for groundwater. Hence, determining the groundwater budget is required to ensure the basin’s sustainability. This study aims to determine groundwater quality for irrigation in the food estate and estimate the groundwater budget. Besides, water quality is also an important feature of groundwater, and it expresses how sufficient the water is for various needs, each having its requirements represented as water quality standards. Groundwater samples were taken from various areas in the research area, and groundwater’s physical-chemical properties, such as TDS, EC, temperature, and pH, were measured in the field and compared with Government Regulation no. 22, 2021, and FAO for irrigation water quality standards. The results show that the research area has a low to medium groundwater potential. The result of physical-chemical properties measurement are as follows TDS value is 183 mg/L on average, EC value is 366 μS/cm on average, the temperature value is 25.4°C on average, and pH value is 7.3 on average. It can be concluded that all of the samples met the standards.