How much does a refrigerator cost to run?

Figures on this page are calculated from typical appliance wattages and the price per kWh you enter, not looked up from a bill. See how we calculate this.

What a refrigerator costs to run: typical 150 W, about $83 a year. Adjust the figures to your own usage and electricity price.

Wattage and running cost

It is plugged in all the time, but the motor only runs part of it: the hourly figure and everything above it use a ~35% duty cycle, not 150 W around the clock. Cost at $0.18/kWh, the US average.

A refrigerator is the appliance most people forget about, yet it is one of the biggest single contributors to a home's electricity bill because it never switches off. Unlike a kettle or a heater, a fridge draws power quietly around the clock, cycling its compressor on and off to hold temperature. That is why its nameplate wattage is misleading: a fridge rated at 150 W does not use 150 W every hour. The compressor typically runs only about a third of the time, so the real average draw is far lower than the label suggests.

This is exactly what the calculator above accounts for. Instead of multiplying the full wattage by 24 hours, it applies a realistic duty cycle so the yearly figure reflects how a fridge actually behaves. A typical modern fridge-freezer uses somewhere between 250 and 500 kWh a year; older or larger American-style models with ice and water dispensers can use much more. Enter your model's wattage and your own price per kWh to see where yours lands.

Several things push the number up: a warm kitchen, a door that gets opened often, dusty condenser coils, worn door seals, and a freezer that has iced up. Because the fridge runs every hour of every day, small inefficiencies compound into real money over a year. The good news is that the same constant operation means small improvements — a cleaner coil, a slightly higher setpoint, better airflow — pay back continuously rather than only when you remember to switch something off.

Most of these searches ask what a fridge costs per month rather than per year, and the monthly figure is simply the annual one divided by twelve — with a caveat worth knowing: the months are not equal. A fridge standing in a kitchen at 30 °C has far more heat to shift than the same fridge at 18 °C, so a summer month costs noticeably more than a winter one, and a fridge in an unheated garage swings further still. If the estimate will not match one particular month's bill, that is usually where the gap comes from. The same figure covers a fridge-freezer, which is what most European kitchens actually hold: one cabinet, one compressor, one plug, and a single annual number on the energy label that already includes the freezer compartment. There is nothing separate to add on top.

What a refrigerator costs in other countries

The figures above assume $0.18/kWh, the US average. A refrigerator does not change when it crosses a border — the price of the electricity it drinks does. Here is what its 460 kWh a year cost in the 14 countries with a page here, dearest first.

Each figure is in that country's own currency at its average all-taxes-included price; the dollar column is there so they can be set against each other. Ireland to Canada is a factor of 3.8 — same appliance, same hours, 3.8 times the bill. Follow a country for its real retailer tariffs and what makes up that price, or see the full electricity price comparison by country.

How to cut refrigerator running costs

• Keep the fridge at 3–5 °C and the freezer at −18 °C; colder than needed just wastes power.
• Vacuum the condenser coils at the back or base once or twice a year — dust makes the compressor work harder.
• Leave a few centimetres of air around the cabinet so heat can escape, and keep it out of direct sun and away from the oven.
• Check the door seal with a sheet of paper: if it slides out easily, the gasket is leaking cold air.
• Let hot food cool before putting it in, and defrost a manual freezer before ice builds up past a few millimetres.
• Before buying a new one, the EU energy label's A–G scale is the fastest way to compare two models — see how to read it.

Frequently asked questions