The source series
All electricity rate figures come from the U.S. Energy Information Administration's Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A: Average Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers by End-Use Sector, by State, collected on Form EIA-861M. The EIA collects monthly revenue, sales and customer counts from electric utilities and publishes state-level averages in the Electric Power Monthly.
The figure we publish is the residential-sector average revenue per kilowatt-hour: total revenue collected from residential customers in a state, divided by total kilowatt-hours sold to them. It is expressed in cents per kilowatt-hour.
The current data period is May 2026, compared against May 2025. The national figure is the EIA's U.S. total, 18.44¢/kWh, not an average of the state values.
What the number includes
Because it is revenue divided by sales, the figure is all-in. It includes:
- the supply or generation portion of the bill;
- transmission and distribution charges;
- riders, surcharges and public benefit charges billed per kilowatt-hour;
- fixed monthly customer charges, spread across the kilowatt-hours sold;
- every residential rate schedule in the state, including flat, tiered, time-of-use and discounted low-income rates.
It does not separate supply from delivery, because the source series does not. Where we discuss that split in editorial text we say so explicitly and describe it qualitatively rather than quoting a figure we cannot source.
What we calculate ourselves
Four derived values on this site are computed by us from the EIA figures, not taken from EIA:
- Year-over-year change. Current period minus the same month one year earlier, expressed both in cents and as a percentage of the earlier value. Using the same calendar month on both sides controls for seasonality, which is substantial in this series.
- National rank. A simple descending sort of the 51 jurisdictions by current rate. Rank 1 is the most expensive. We also publish the inverse rank for readability.
- Difference from the U.S. average. The state rate minus the national figure, as a percentage of the national figure.
- Bill estimates. Rate in cents × kilowatt-hours ÷ 100. Nothing more sophisticated than that, and deliberately so. See the limitations below.
Rounding
Rates are published to two decimal places exactly as EIA reports them. Percentages are rounded to one decimal place. Cent differences are rounded to two. Bill estimates are rounded to whole dollars, because presenting them to the cent would imply a precision the underlying average does not have. Rankings are computed on the unrounded values.
Limitations you should know about
A state average is not a tariff. No household is billed at the state average. Your rate depends on your utility, your rate schedule and, in tiered or time-of-use structures, on when and how much you use.
Within-state variation can exceed between-state variation. New York is the clearest example: the gap between a Consolidated Edison customer in New York City and an upstate utility customer is larger than the gap between many entire states. Washington, Colorado, Utah and California have the same issue where municipal utilities sit alongside investor-owned ones.
Monthly data is seasonal. Residential average revenue per kilowatt-hour moves with the mix of rate schedules and usage tiers active in a given month. Comparing May against May is meaningful; comparing May against January is not.
Bill estimates exclude fixed charges and taxes. The calculator multiplies rate by usage. Real bills add a fixed customer charge, state and local taxes, and any utility-specific rider billed as a flat amount. In states with large fixed charges the estimate will understate a small user's bill.
Revisions and updates
EIA revises the Electric Power Monthly as utilities file corrections, and figures for recent months should be treated as preliminary. We refresh the dataset when EIA publishes a new month, restate the period label, and keep the retrieval date visible on every page that carries a figure.
When a previously published figure is revised, we replace it rather than preserving the original. The source of record is EIA, and carrying a stale figure would be worse than a silent correction. Structural changes to how we calculate anything on this page are noted with a date.
Corrections
If you find an error, whether a wrong figure, a misdescribed utility or a market structure we have characterised incorrectly, please tell us via the contact page. We correct factual errors promptly and note substantive corrections on the affected page.
Reuse
The underlying EIA data is a work of the U.S. federal government and is in the public domain. Our compiled dataset is available as CSV and JSON. If you use it, a link back is appreciated but not required; a citation to EIA is the correct attribution for the underlying figures.