Average Electric Bill By State In The United States For 2026

Which state has the highest electric bill?

Hawaii, at $212.12 a month, on the nation’s highest rate. Connecticut follows at $199.66, and then comes the tell: Alabama at $173.50, Massachusetts at $167.20, and Maryland at $165.87, a list that mixes expensive-rate states with cheap-rate, heavy-usage ones.

At the bottom sit New Mexico at $92.88, Utah at $94.57, and Colorado at $100.57. Mild summers, small gas-heated homes, moderate rates: the boring trifecta that wins.

The average electric bill by state: the full table

The table below shows every state plus DC with all three dials: the monthly bill, the rate, and the kilowatt hours per month behind it. Sort it however you want; the bill column is the one your budget feels.

Source: EIA, Annual Electric Power Industry Report (EIA-861), Table 5A.

Why cheap-rate states still get big bills

Your bill is rate times usage, and the two dials rarely point the same way. Louisiana homes run 1,201.8 kilowatt hours a month, the most in America and more than double California’s 503.2, on electric heat, big houses, and air conditioning that never sleeps. California pays 31.97 cents, nearly triple Louisiana’s rate, yet Louisiana’s bill lands mid-table while California’s is 8th-highest in the country.

Hawaii is what happens when both dials point the wrong way at once. A 42.86-cent rate on modest island usage still produces the country’s biggest bill.

Where are electric rates rising fastest?

Ohio, up 19.4 percent in a year in the newest preliminary federal data, with DC at 19.2, New Jersey at 16.8, Maryland at 15.9, and New Hampshire at 15.1. The national average is up 7.3 percent, driven by grid spending, fuel costs, and yes, partly by new demand; our data centers by state page has that story’s actual numbers.

The counter-list is shorter and stranger. Rates fell in exactly three places this year: Massachusetts, down 3.9 percent, Rhode Island, down 2.0, and Arizona, down 1.2.

Methodology: where these numbers come from

Bills, rates, and usage come from the Energy Information Administration’s annual electric power industry report, the 2024 final data collected from every utility on form EIA-861, covering 143,144,185 residential customers in the 50 states plus DC. The year-over-year rate changes come from EIA’s Electric Power Monthly, comparing April 2026 against April 2025; monthly figures are preliminary estimates and are labeled that way wherever they appear.

One warning about this topic’s search results. The rate-shopping sites that dominate it resell these same EIA tables with the vintages mixed, which is why their pages disagree with each other in the same week; two of them misread EIA tables badly enough that we documented it in our earlier energy research. Why your state’s rate is what it is mostly comes down to its fuel mix, which our energy mix by state page covers in full.

• Bills, rates, usage: EIA-861 annual, 2024 final, Table 5A (residential)
• Rate changes: EIA Electric Power Monthly 5.6.A, Apr 2026 vs Apr 2025, preliminary
• Vintages never mixed in one figure; preliminary data labeled
• Bill = rate × usage; the identity is checked per state in our build

The bottom line

The average American electric bill is $142.26 a month, and the spread from $92.88 to $212.12 is only half about rates. The other half is the meter: how big the house is, what heats it, and how hot the summer runs.

If your bill stings, check both dials before blaming one. The fix for a rate problem and the fix for a usage problem are different projects.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. US Energy Information Administration. “Annual Electric Power Industry Report (EIA-861), 2024: Table 5A, Residential Average Monthly Bill by State.” 2025. www.eia.gov/electricity/sales_revenue_price/
2. US Energy Information Administration. “Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A: Average Price of Electricity to Ultimate Customers by End-Use Sector, by State.” 2026. www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a