Average Cost of Electricity per kWh by State
US residential electricity costs 18.44¢/kWh on average — about $165.96 a month at 900 kWh — in the EIA’s May 2026 release. Hawaii is the most expensive at 52.00¢/kWh and Idaho the least at 12.35¢/kWh, a 4.2× spread. The median jurisdiction sits at 16.27¢/kWh, and averaging the 51 jurisdiction rates equally instead gives 19.41¢/kWh.
The table below ranks every state and the District of Columbia by average residential rate. Want the cost of a specific amount of electricity instead? Use the national electricity cost calculator for any kWh amount.
Electricity rates by state, highest to lowest
Rates are average residential prices from the EIA’s May 2026 release. The monthly bill column applies each rate to a fixed 900 kWh month so the 51 jurisdictions are compared on the same usage.
How to read these rates
- What the rate is. Each figure is the average residential price per kilowatt-hour the U.S. Energy Information Administration publishes for that jurisdiction in Form EIA-861M. It is an average of what residential customers actually paid — supply, delivery, and the fixed charges spread over the kilowatt-hours sold — not a single utility’s advertised tariff.
- What the US average is. The 18.44¢ figure is the EIA’s own US-total residential price for May 2026: total residential revenue divided by the kilowatt-hours actually sold nationwide, so a large market counts for more than a small one. The vs US average column measures every jurisdiction against it. Averaging the 51 jurisdiction rates equally instead gives 19.41¢/kWh — higher, because several small expensive jurisdictions then count the same as California. That unweighted mean is shown for context and is not used anywhere else on this page.
- Why your bill differs. The monthly column holds usage fixed at 900 kWh so states can be compared on one basis. Real bills move with how much you use, your rate plan, and the season.
- Vintage. Every figure on this page comes from the same EIA release — May 2026 — and refreshes when the monthly pipeline publishes a newer one. See the methodology for how the dataset is ingested and checked.
Why rates differ this much between states
A 4.2× gap between Hawaii and Idaho is a real feature of the US market, not a data artifact. Electricity is generated, transmitted, and billed under different resource mixes and regulatory regimes in every state. The factors documented in the site’s driver taxonomy — generation mix, fuel costs, transmission constraints, distribution investment, capacity markets, regulatory rate cases, and demand growth — are the categories that separate a 12.35¢ state from a 52.00¢ one.
This table shows what rates are, not why any one of them moved. A price series records movement; it never proves cause. Where the site publishes a reviewed, state-specific driver analysis it says so on that state’s page and dates it. For the general categories see what drives electricity generation costs and the per-state rate driver analyses. For how a single jurisdiction’s rate has moved over the last decade, follow its rate-history link in the table above.
Related topics: Compare electricity prices between two states · Electricity price history by state · Electricity affordability by state · Explore electricity providers by state · How to compare electricity plans · Why electricity prices change · Electricity inflation · Electricity price volatility · Electricity topics · Electricity data
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