Every Texas retail electricity bill breaks into three buckets: supply (the energy your provider sells you), delivery (regulated wire charges from your local utility), and taxes and fees. Once you can separate those three pieces, you can spot when a plan looked cheap on the Electricity Facts Label but bills expensive, and you can catch the small overcharges that add up fast.
A Texas electricity bill is the monthly statement your Retail Electric Provider sends you that reconciles three separate cost buckets: the electricity you consumed, the regulated cost of moving it to your house, and the state and local charges that ride along. Nothing else belongs on your bill. If you see a fourth category (a green energy fee, an equipment charge, a mystery adjustment), that line item deserves a phone call.
Here is what typically appears on a Texas residential bill as of July 2026:
| Bucket | Line item | Who sets it | Typical range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supply | Energy charge (per kWh) | Your REP | 7.7 to 21.0 cents per kWh |
| Supply | Base or customer charge (monthly) | Your REP | $4.95 to $14.99 |
| Supply | Minimum usage fee (conditional) | Your REP | $4.99 to $9.99 |
| Delivery | TDU fixed customer charge (monthly) | PUCT tariff | $3.24 to $7.85 |
| Delivery | TDU distribution charge (per kWh) | PUCT tariff | 5.15 to 6.47 cents per kWh |
| Taxes | PUCT assessment | State (0.1667%) | About $0.20 on a $120 bill |
| Taxes | Gross receipts reimbursement | Local city (0.581% to 2.0%) | $0.70 to $2.40 on a $120 bill |
| Taxes | State and local sales tax | 6.25% + local | $7.50 to $10.00 on a $120 bill |
Sources: PUCT tariff schedules, Texas Comptroller sales tax rates, and 2026 TDU delivery-charge filings.
The top of your bill is identification. Five fields matter, and they matter in this order.
Your account number is your unique customer ID with the Retail Electric Provider. Keep it near the phone for service calls.
Your ESI ID (Electric Service Identifier) is a 17 to 22 digit number that identifies the physical service point at your address. It never changes when you switch providers because it belongs to the meter location, not the REP. If you live in an apartment or duplex, verify that the ESI ID on your bill matches the meter serving your unit. It is a common billing mistake that we see more often than any other.
The meter number is the serial number on the physical meter on your wall. Most Texas homes now have smart meters that report to the grid automatically. If your bill lists a meter number that does not match the one bolted to your building, stop reading the bill and call your provider.
The service period is the date range being billed, usually 28 to 32 days. A 35-day period will run 15 to 20 percent higher than a 28-day period at the same rate, which explains many surprise bills that have nothing to do with your usage habits.
The contract expiration date is the second most important date on the page, after the amount due. Many Texas REPs will roll you onto a month-to-month holdover rate the day your contract ends, and holdover rates as of July 2026 commonly run 15 to 22 cents per kWh even when a comparable fixed plan is available at 11 to 13 cents.
The energy charge is the price your provider bills for the electricity itself, quoted in cents per kilowatt hour. It is the number people mean when they compare plans on the Electricity Facts Label.
In competitive Texas plans as of July 2026, the energy charge ranges from about 7.7 cents per kWh on the leanest fixed products up to 21 cents per kWh on premium green plans and holdover rates. It is worth noting that the energy charge alone is not what you actually pay per kilowatt hour. The published rate on an EFL is an average calculated at 500, 1,000, and 2,000 kWh of usage, and it already blends in the base charge and TDU pass-through at those specific usage levels. If your household lands between those benchmarks, your real cost per kilowatt hour will be higher.
A base charge is a flat monthly fee your provider bills regardless of how much electricity you used. Base charges on Texas EFLs typically fall between $4.95 and $14.99 per month.
A minimum usage fee is a conditional penalty that only triggers when your monthly usage falls below a threshold set on the plan, most often 500 or 1,000 kWh. A common structure is $9.99 tacked onto the bill any month the household uses less than 1,000 kWh. For a snowbird, an Airbnb host, or anyone who winters in Colorado, that fee alone can add $90 or more to a shoulder-season year.
Low-usage households are punished by both charges. If you use 400 kWh in a mild April and your plan carries a $9.95 base plus a $9.99 minimum usage fee, that is $19.94 of fixed cost stacked on roughly $32 of actual energy. Your effective rate for the month jumps to around 13 cents per kWh even if the plan is advertised at 9.9 cents.
TDU delivery charges are the regulated fees your local Transmission and Distribution Utility bills for maintaining the poles, wires, transformers, and substations that carry electricity from the grid to your meter. In deregulated Texas, you do not choose your TDU. It is determined by where you live, and every REP passes the TDU charges through on your bill.
The Public Utility Commission of Texas sets these rates by tariff and updates them at least twice a year. Below are the rates as of July 2026 for the five main Texas TDUs (fixed monthly customer charge plus per-kWh distribution rate):
| TDU | Fixed monthly | Per kWh |
|---|---|---|
| Oncor | $4.06 | 6.1196 cents |
| CenterPoint Energy | $4.90 | 5.1461 cents |
| AEP Texas Central | $3.24 | 5.8272 cents |
| AEP Texas North | $3.24 | 5.6677 cents |
| Texas-New Mexico Power (TNMP) | $7.85 | 6.4665 cents |
Rates as of July 2026. See the 2026 Oncor rate increase explainer for the last change.
For a home in the CenterPoint service area using 1,000 kWh in a month, TDU charges add $4.90 plus $51.46, which is $56.36 of the bill before a single kilowatt hour of supply is added. That is why the "cheap" energy rate on the EFL is only half of the story.
"Nobody likes paying for extra capacity," Ed Hirs, University of Houston BDO Fellow in Energy Economics, told Houston Public Media in May 2024, describing the delivery-side costs that Texans absorb regardless of which retailer they choose.
Four small line items make up the tax section of a Texas bill:
Together, taxes and regulatory fees usually total 6 to 10 percent of a Texas residential bill.
Your effective rate is the total amount due divided by the number of kilowatt hours consumed, expressed in cents per kWh. It is the only number that lets you compare two bills or two plans fairly, and it is the one number every Texan should know for their own household.
The formula is:
Effective rate = Amount Due ÷ kWh Used
Worked example at 1,000 kWh in the Oncor service area (rates as of July 2026):
That is nearly double the 9.9 cent headline rate. The math is the same regardless of your provider. What matters is that you run it every bill, and that you run it against your own usage instead of the 500 or 1,000 or 2,000 kWh benchmark the EFL uses.
Worked example at 2,000 kWh in the same service area:
Notice that the effective rate drops as usage climbs, because the fixed charges (base and TDU customer charge) spread across more kilowatt hours. That is exactly why the same plan can look great on a summer bill and expensive on a fall bill.
We built this checklist for Ambit Energy customers who called in with sticker shock. It is deliberately short. Run every bill through the same six questions and you will catch the majority of the errors and mispricings that show up in Texas residential accounts.
Point 1: Is the service period 28 to 32 days? Anything longer than 34 days should be prorated by the REP. Anything shorter without an obvious reason (a move-in or move-out) is worth a call.
Point 2: Does the meter number on the bill match the meter serving your unit? For apartments, duplexes, and detached in-law units this is the number one source of overbilling in Texas.
Point 3: Does your usage this month land inside your Electricity Facts Label's projected bracket? EFLs quote at 500, 1,000, and 2,000 kWh. If your usage is close to a benchmark, your effective rate should be close to the EFL projection. If it is 20 percent higher, something is off with the plan structure.
Point 4: Does your effective rate match the EFL's projected all-in rate for a comparable usage? Run the amount-due-divided-by-kWh math and compare it to the EFL. A gap larger than one cent per kWh is worth investigating.
Point 5: Do the TDU fixed and per-kWh charges match the current tariff? The current 2026 rates are in the table above. If your bill shows a different Oncor per-kWh rate, ask for the source.
Point 6: Is your contract expiration at least 45 days away? If not, start shopping today. Do not let the account roll to a holdover rate.
If any of the six questions has an unclear answer, call your provider. Texas REPs are required to walk a customer through the bill on request.
The average pricing convention on an Electricity Facts Label is the most misunderstood feature of the Texas retail market. The EFL quotes a total effective rate at three specific usage levels: 500, 1,000, and 2,000 kWh. Between those benchmarks, the effective rate curves in ways that can surprise a household by 15 to 25 percent.
Three specific mechanics make a real bill run higher than the EFL rate:
"We were on a path to energy abundance and we're about to get energy scarcity including increased risk of blackouts and much higher electric bills," Doug Lewin, publisher of the Texas Energy and Power Newsletter, wrote on July 30, 2025, warning that a wider Texas rate environment is trending upward and that the plan you sign today matters more than it did five years ago.
You should file a Public Utility Commission of Texas complaint when your REP fails to resolve a documented billing error, when a plan was switched without your consent (slamming), or when your service was disconnected in violation of state protection rules. The PUCT fielded 1,876 customer complaints about retail electric providers between September 2025 and February 2026, and 134 providers were the subject of complaints in the first half of 2026 alone. Slamming accounted for 16.6% of informal complaints between 2024 and October 2025.
The complaint path is straightforward:
"RTOs were created to lower costs to end-use consumers but have failed to do so," Tyson Slocum, Energy Program Director at Public Citizen, told RTO Insider in January 2023. The PUCT complaint process is the formal way Texans register that the system is not working as promised.
Once you can read every line of your Texas electricity bill, the next questions are which plan actually saves you money for your household's usage and how to switch without downtime. A few Ambit resources pair naturally with this guide:
If you want a second pair of eyes on your bill, our Texas team is happy to look. Request a quote and we will run the audit above against your last three statements. Plan details, current EFL, and Terms of Service available on request. Enrollment subject to credit approval.
How do I read my electric bill?
Start with the service period and the total amount due. Then divide the amount due by the kilowatt hours used to get your effective rate. Compare that number to the projected all-in rate on your Electricity Facts Label at the same usage level. If the two numbers differ by more than one cent per kWh, walk through the 6-Point Bill Audit above.
Is 2,000 kWh a lot for a month?
The average Texas residential household uses about 1,096 kWh per month according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. A 2,000 kWh month is roughly double the state average and is common for larger homes during peak summer heat.
What is a normal electric bill in Texas?
The average U.S. residential electric bill in 2026 is about $165 per month. Texas households cluster from $110 to $220 depending on home size, insulation, thermostat setting, and plan structure. A summer bill above $300 for a 2,500 square foot home is worth auditing.
What does a minus sign mean on my bill?
A negative number on the amount due usually reflects a credit: a bill credit from a promotion, an overpayment, or a returned deposit. Confirm the source with your provider before assuming next month's bill will be $0.
How often do TDU delivery rates change?
TDU rates change at least twice a year, and typically in March and September. Watch for a rate-change notification on the top or back of your bill in those months.
How do I get a copy of my Electricity Facts Label?
Your REP is required to keep the EFL on file for the life of your contract, and most providers link it inside the customer portal. If you cannot find it, call and request the EFL and Terms of Service in writing.
This guide is written for the Ambit Energy Brand audience (Texas households and small businesses). Plan availability, pricing, and terms vary by service area and are subject to change. See your plan's EFL for the specific rate and fee structure applied to your account. Enrollment subject to credit approval.
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