A self-raising seat for water closets, wherein the seat is fixedly mounted upon a hinge tube, with the tube ends hingedly held in hinge posts secured to the closet bowl. A torsion spring composed of a bundle of leaf springs has one end attached to one end of the hinge tube and its opposite end projecting beyond the opposite end of the tube. A spring holder rotatably mounted in a hinge post is fitted over the projecting end of the spring bundle, and an adjustment screw through the hinge post and in contact with an abutment on the spring holder biases the spring to establish an at rest, raised position of the seat. In another form of the invention, the projecting end of the spring bundle seats in a recess of similar cross-section in the hinge post, providing a fixed anchor for the spring end but no means for spring adjustment.