Electricity Price per kWh in the United States (2025 S2)

A kilowatt-hour costs $0.18 in the United States, the 17th dearest of the 23 countries tracked here. What the main retailers charge, whether a heat pump beats gas here, and how clean the grid behind it is.

Electricity in the United States costs $0.18 per kilowatt-hour — which puts it 40 % below the median of the 23 countries tracked on this site. That is the price with all taxes included, for a household in the 2,500–4,999 kWh a year band — one definition applied to every country, because mixing tax-inclusive and tax-exclusive figures is what puts most country comparisons out by 15% or more.

What that means in practice: a household using 3,700 kWh a year pays about $666 for the electricity itself. The number on your own bill will differ — that is what the retailer table below is for.

What the main retailers in the United States charge

Indicative standard tariffs from the 4 largest retailers. Between the cheapest and the dearest there is 154 % — on 3,700 kWh a year that is $740 you can move without using a single kilowatt-hour less.

Heating in the United States: gas or a heat pump?

Gas costs $0.049 per kWh in the United States, against $0.18 for electricity — so electricity is about 3.7 times the price of gas here. All taxes included on both sides, same period, so they can be compared directly.

That ratio decides how a house is cheapest to heat. A heat pump delivers several units of heat per unit of electricity; a 92% condensing boiler delivers slightly less heat than the gas it burns. The two cost the same to run at a seasonal COP of 3.4 — that is the break-even for the United States. That sits inside the range a real air-source unit actually delivers over a season (roughly 2.8 to 3.8), so in the United States the answer depends on the specific machine, the radiators and the winter — worth doing the arithmetic rather than assuming.

Run your own numbers →

Where the break-even sits in 11 countries →

What things actually cost to run in the United States

Yearly running cost at the United States's average price of $0.18, all taxes included. Consumption figures are the same ones the appliance pages use.

Those four together come to $233 a year in the United States — $233. The same four cost $388 at the median of the 23 and $595 in Ireland, the dearest. Same appliances, same hours — the difference is entirely where they are plugged in.

How that compares

The United States against the extremes and the middle of the 23 countries tracked, in dollars per kWh so the comparison is like for like.

How clean the electricity is

Price is only half of what a kilowatt-hour costs. The grid in the United States emits 390 grams of CO₂-equivalent per kWh on a lifecycle basis, averaged over a year of generation. For the same 3,700 kWh household that is about 1,443 kg of CO₂ a year.

For scale: the cleanest grid tracked here is Norway at 20 g/kWh, the dirtiest is South Africa at 950 g/kWh. The United States sits in the dirtier third, 18th cleanest of 23.

This matters for a practical reason as well as an environmental one: on a clean grid, swapping a gas boiler for a heat pump cuts emissions immediately. On a coal-heavy one, the same swap mostly moves the emissions from your street to the power station.

The national figure is an average with all taxes included: your own tariff depends on your retailer, your contract, whether you are on time-of-use pricing, and the season. Standing charges are not in the per-kWh figure. For anything that matters, use the number on your own bill — every calculator here takes it.

Retailer and utility names on this page are trademarks of their respective owners, used here for identification and price comparison only. WattFigures is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by any of them.

There is no single US price — see all 50 states →

Work out your own cost per kWh →

Compare all countries →