The fixed charge on your electric bill: what each state's utilities charge before the first kilowatt-hour
122 utilities, 602 plans, 24 states; the plans were edited between 2022 and April 2026 and the utilities serve 74,798,387 homes. State medians run from $6.62 in New Jersey to $28.43 in Georgia. At each state's average price the charge equals 29 to 193 kWh. It is a recorded plan field, not a bill, and says nothing about the rest of the rate.
Median fixed charge by state
- $6.62 to $13.00
- $13.00 to $18.00
- $18.00 to $19.65
- $19.65 to $24.45
- $24.45 to $28.43
Grey states have no page: fewer than 3 utilities with a recent plan, or those utilities serve under 25% of the state's homes (Minnesota, North Carolina, Texas, Utah were cut for coverage). Grey states link to their price page.
All 24 states in one table
| Arizona | 6 | 70 | 22.22 | 24.44 | 13.93 | 30.00 | 145 | 13.9 | 89 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | 6 | 81 | 18.00 | 16.00 | 0.94 | 24.13 | 55 | 10.3 | 85 |
| Colorado | 11 | 23 | 19.65 | 8.19 | 7.87 | 38.32 | 124 | 18.6 | 83 |
| Connecticut | 3 | 14 | 13.02 | 10.31 | 10.31 | 26.75 | 44 | 7.0 | 94 |
| Florida | 6 | 10 | 18.88 | 10.52 | 10.52 | 40.00 | 124 | 11.2 | 75 |
| Georgia | 6 | 14 | 28.43 | 14.00 | 14.00 | 49.30 | 193 | 17.9 | 62 |
| Illinois | 3 | 15 | 16.00 | 18.08 | 14.01 | 18.08 | 90 | 13.8 | 92 |
| Indiana | 4 | 6 | 22.25 | 13.70 | 13.70 | 34.00 | 137 | 15.3 | 46 |
| Kentucky | 5 | 12 | 22.00 | 22.00 | 13.69 | 24.31 | 166 | 15.9 | 53 |
| Louisiana | 3 | 4 | 11.99 | 11.99 | 8.07 | 14.00 | 95 | 7.9 | 66 |
| Massachusetts | 4 | 47 | 10.52 | 7.50 | 7.50 | 14.88 | 35 | 6.5 | 88 |
| Michigan | 4 | 32 | 11.93 | 9.37 | 8.73 | 18.00 | 60 | 9.6 | 86 |
| Missouri | 5 | 16 | 16.31 | 9.00 | 9.00 | 39.09 | 121 | 12.1 | 57 |
| Nevada | 3 | 17 | 18.50 | 18.50 | 18.25 | 35.00 | 141 | 15.6 | 94 |
| New Jersey | 4 | 19 | 6.62 | 6.00 | 6.00 | 7.00 | 29 | 4.5 | 96 |
| New York | 6 | 75 | 21.00 | 20.00 | 16.80 | 27.93 | 80 | 14.2 | 95 |
| Ohio | 5 | 14 | 16.49 | 16.49 | 6.73 | 53.00 | 97 | 11.3 | 52 |
| Oregon | 3 | 9 | 28.16 | 16.36 | 16.36 | 30.00 | 183 | 20.9 | 50 |
| Pennsylvania | 3 | 13 | 13.00 | 13.00 | 11.29 | 15.52 | 67 | 8.4 | 62 |
| South Carolina | 6 | 11 | 24.45 | 10.00 | 10.00 | 45.62 | 163 | 15.5 | 46 |
| Tennessee | 6 | 13 | 25.48 | 21.81 | 15.10 | 32.29 | 193 | 16.8 | 39 |
| Virginia | 4 | 17 | 18.79 | 7.58 | 7.58 | 33.75 | 123 | 11.9 | 78 |
| Washington | 9 | 40 | 28.29 | 17.99 | 13.48 | 59.99 | 216 | 22.6 | 67 |
| Wisconsin | 7 | 30 | 13.00 | 15.00 | 1.18 | 18.75 | 72 | 11.3 | 80 |
Download state table as CSV Download all 122 utilities as CSV
Click a header to sort. The median is taken over utilities, each utility counting once with the median of its own plans.
Ranked by median fixed charge
Georgia is highest at $28.43 and New Jersey lowest at $6.62, a ratio of 4.3 to 1.
The same charge in kilowatt-hours
A dollar amount means more where power is cheap. At each state's 2025 average price, Washington's median equals 216 kWh and New Jersey's 29 kWh. Measured as a share of the average bill, the highest is Washington at 22.6% and the lowest New Jersey at 4.5%. A home that uses less energy pays the same fixed charge, so the charge takes a bigger share of its bill. EIA's average price already contains fixed charges, so the share describes the average bill and adds no cost.
Fixed charge and average price
Across 24 states the correlation is r = -0.46, a moderate negative link. States with a higher fixed charge tend to have a lower average price. Utilities choose how to split the same revenue between the fixed charge and the per-kWh rate, so a state with a high fixed charge can still have low energy rates. The average price already includes fixed charges.
What is my utility's fixed charge?
- Pick a utility.
What this means for you
- Find the line called customer charge, basic service charge or facilities charge on your bill. That is the fixed charge; it is billed in months when you are away.
- You can cut the energy part of your bill by using less, not the fixed part. Compare utilities by total bill at your own use, not by the per-kWh rate alone.
- If your utility proposes a higher fixed charge in a rate case, low-use homes pay more of the same revenue. The charge in your tariff may differ from the median shown here.
- Optional plans (electric vehicle, time of use, low-income) can carry different fixed charges; the figures here come from plans in the rate database, not from your bill.
How we measure it
Source: the OpenEI Utility Rate Database (URDB), copy captured 2026-04-17. We read residential plans without an end date, drop plans labelled closed and energy-only plans, and keep the 926 that were last edited on or after 2022-01-01; 5,368 older plans (nearly all from the 2015 data load) are not used. The first-meter fixed charge is taken as listed; a daily charge is multiplied by 365 and divided by 12. 36 plans list no fixed charge field and 6 list a value outside 0 to 100 dollars a month, which we treat as unit slips; a blank is never counted as zero. That leaves 884 plans. Each utility gets the median of its plans. A utility is placed in a state when at least 90% of its residential customers in EIA-861 2024 (parts A, C and D) are there, which leaves 175 utilities. A state needs 3 such utilities serving at least 25% of its residential customers. The state figure is the median of its utility medians; the weighted figure counts every home once. The kWh equivalent divides the monthly median by the state's 2025 average residential price. Share of average bill uses residential sales per customer from EIA-861 Part A (bundled service) and the same price.
What this does not show: your own charge, the energy rate, taxes and riders, or optional plans nobody enrolled in. The rate database is crowd-maintained and has gaps; a plan may be out of date even if edited in 2022 or later. The URDB is published as open data; its download page and its terms name different licences (CC0 and CC BY 4.0), so we credit OpenEI and NREL either way.
Browse by state
Sources
| Source | Period | Retrieved | SHA-256 (first 12) |
|---|---|---|---|
| OpenEI Utility Rate Database (URDB), NREL, bulk residential plan file | plans last edited 2022-01-01 or later; newest edit April 2026 | Internet Archive copy captured 2026-04-17, read 2026-10-07 | 461d2836943e |
| EIA, Annual Electric Power Industry Report (Form EIA-861), 2024 data, Sales_Ult_Cust | 2024 data year, residential customers by utility and state | file set dated 6 Oct 2025; archived 1 Oct 2026 | 77ce49c60ac5 |
| EIA retail sales, average residential price by state | annual 2025 | cached copy used by every price page on this site | see data page |
Downloads: state table CSV, all utilities CSV. Method on the hub page.
Questions
What is a fixed charge on an electric bill?
A monthly amount billed whether or not you use power, also called a customer charge or basic service charge. Across 122 utilities in our data the median is $18.50 a month.
Which state has the highest fixed charge?
Of 24 states with enough recent plans, Georgia ($28.43 a month), Washington ($28.29) and Oregon ($28.16) are highest by median of utility medians.
Why is my state missing?
A state needs 3+ utilities with a rate plan edited since 2022 whose homes make up at least 25% of the state. Others have too few current plans in the rate database.
Is the fixed charge included in the cents-per-kWh price?
Yes. EIA's average price divides total residential revenue, fixed charges included, by kWh sold, so it is not a rate and the two figures overlap.
How current are these figures?
Plans were edited between 2022 and April 2026; the copy is from 2026-04-17. Check your tariff before relying on a number.