An Electricity Facts Label (EFL) is the one-page disclosure every Texas retail electric provider must hand you before you enroll in a plan. It carries six numbers that decide your monthly bill: the average price per kWh at three usage levels, the base charge, the energy charge, the TDU delivery charge, any bill or usage credit, and the early termination fee. Miss any of them and your real cost can land twice as high as the rate printed at the top of the ad.
Reading the label takes about three minutes once you know where to look. This guide is written for Texas households and small businesses shopping for electricity plans on Power to Choose. It walks the six numbers, shows the math at your own usage, and works through a real two-plan comparison so you can pick with your eyes open.
An Electricity Facts Label is a standardized one-page plan disclosure that every retail electric provider (REP) in the deregulated ERCOT market must give you before enrollment. It is Texas's version of a nutrition label for an electricity plan. The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) codified the format under Substantive Rule 25.475 so a family in Sugar Land can compare a Rhythm plan against a Chariot plan against an Ambit plan and read all three the same way. For a plain-English tour of how the Texas retail market itself works, see our guide to how Texas deregulated electricity works.
Your enrollment kit actually includes three documents: the EFL, the Terms of Service (TOS), and the Your Rights as a Customer (YRAC) notice. The EFL is the pricing sheet. The TOS is the contract. The YRAC is the rights disclosure. When people say "read the fine print," the EFL is the part that changes your bill.
You will find the EFL on the plan card itself while you shop. On the state's official comparison site, powertochoose.org, every plan listing carries an "EFL" or "Fact Sheet" link right under the price. On a provider's own site, the link sits next to the "Sign Up" button. After enrollment, the provider is required to mail or email the EFL with your welcome pack.
If you already have service and cannot find the EFL, ask your provider's customer service line for the exact plan name and PDF. The PUCT requires them to give it to you at no charge.
Every Texas EFL puts six numbers in the same six places. Read them in this order and you have the whole plan:
The next six sections walk each number, in order.
The average price per kWh is the all-in cost of the plan: base plus energy plus delivery minus credits, divided by your monthly usage. Every EFL prints it at three usage levels: 500, 1,000, and 2,000 kWh.
Providers advertise the middle row. It looks cleanest and it is the number Power to Choose shows on the plan card. But most Texas homes do not use exactly 1,000 kWh a month, especially in summer. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported the Texas residential all-in rate averaged about 15.41 cents per kWh in Q2 2026. A single-adult apartment might land at 500 kWh in winter. A four-bedroom home with the AC running in July often hits 2,000 kWh or more. Our breakdown of how many kWh a Texas home uses per day in summer can help you pin down your own row.
Read the row closest to your actual usage. If the 500 kWh cell shows 22 cents but the 1,000 kWh cell shows 12 cents, that is a plan built around a bill credit that only fires at 1,000 kWh. Your real price at 700 kWh will look nothing like the advertised 12 cents.
The base charge is a flat monthly fee the provider adds regardless of how much power you use. It usually runs zero to about $10, though a handful of plans go higher.
The trap is math. A $9.95 monthly base charge on a 500 kWh apartment adds about 2 cents per kWh to the effective rate, wiping out a 9-cent headline rate. On a 2,000 kWh home the same $9.95 fee spreads to half a cent per kWh. Base charges hurt low-usage households harder than heavy users. Some EFLs word this as "base charge applies only when usage is below X kWh," which is worse: it is a hidden minimum-usage penalty in different clothing.
The energy charge is what the retail provider bills you per kWh for the power itself. It is the piece the REP controls: their generation cost, their margin, and their risk premium.
On a fixed-rate plan the energy charge does not change during the term. On a variable-rate plan it can move month to month, sometimes with only the small-print notification the PUCT requires. On an indexed plan it is tied to a formula (like the ERCOT wholesale price plus a fixed adder), and the EFL is required to show the exact formula.
Your Transmission and Distribution Utility (TDU) owns the poles and wires. In Texas that means Oncor (Dallas-Fort Worth), CenterPoint (Houston), AEP Texas Central, AEP Texas North, or TNMP. The TDU charge covers moving power to your meter and is regulated by the PUCT, so every retail provider passes through the same TDU rate in a given service territory. Our full walkthrough of TDU delivery charges on your Texas bill goes deeper on each utility.
Industry data compiled by Electric Choice in 2026 puts delivery charges around 15.9 cents per kWh in Oncor territory, 16.4 cents in CenterPoint, 15.1 cents in AEP Texas North, 15.4 cents in AEP Texas Central, and 14.6 cents in TNMP for typical residential usage. The EFL breaks this out as a monthly service fee plus a per-kWh charge. It is not something a plan competes on: two plans in Houston pay CenterPoint the same amount to move a kWh.
A bill credit is a fixed dollar amount ($75, $100, and $125 are common) the provider subtracts from your bill only when your monthly usage lands in a specific window (say, 1,000 to 1,999 kWh). A usage credit is the same idea worded slightly differently: a per-kWh rebate that kicks in above a threshold.
This is where the average-price-per-kWh headline breaks down. Doug Lewin, energy consultant and author of the Texas Energy and Power Newsletter, told Houston Public Media in May 2024 that Texas retail bills have grown more expensive and more volatile as plan complexity has climbed. A plan advertising 9.9 cents at 1,000 kWh often carries a $100 bill credit that fires exactly at 1,000 kWh. Use 950 kWh and the credit does not trigger, so your real rate might be 15 cents. Use 1,050 kWh and you win. Households whose usage swings across the threshold pay wildly different effective rates month to month. Our reporting on Texas households overpaying $480 a year on electricity unpacks the specific plan tricks that create this gap.
If a plan lists a bill or usage credit, write down the exact usage window on the EFL. If your actual usage does not land inside it most months, skip the plan.
The early termination fee is the flat dollar amount you pay if you cancel before the contract term ends. Common ranges run $50 to $295 for residential plans. Some EFLs use a tiered structure ($50 per remaining month, up to a cap), which often works out worse than a flat fee if you cancel early in the term.
Two carve-outs to know: month-to-month plans have no termination fee (that is the trade for a higher headline rate), and Texas law lets you cancel without a fee if you move out of the service address.
The formula is straightforward:
Real price per kWh = (Base charge + Energy charge x Usage + TDU per-kWh x Usage + TDU monthly - Credits) / Usage
Worked example: a 700 kWh household on a plan that shows 9.9 cents at 1,000 kWh with a $75 bill credit at 1,000 kWh, an 8.5-cent energy charge, a 4.8-cent TDU pass-through, a $4.39 TDU monthly, and a $0 base charge:
Same plan at 1,800 kWh triggers the credit and the math flips: the real price lands closer to 11.2 cents. Same plan, same household, two different worlds. If you want to trace the same math back to the individual line items on your invoice, our guide to how to read your Texas electricity bill shows exactly where each number lands.
Consider a Houston family that uses about 750 kWh a month year-round (a modest apartment or an efficient small home).
| Line | Plan A (bill-credit) | Plan B (flat rate) |
|---|---|---|
| Advertised price at 1,000 kWh | 9.9 cents/kWh | 13.5 cents/kWh |
| Base charge | $0 | $0 |
| Energy charge | 8.5 cents/kWh | 9.2 cents/kWh |
| CenterPoint delivery (per kWh + monthly) | 4.8 cents + $4.39 | 4.8 cents + $4.39 |
| Bill credit | $75 at 1,000 to 1,999 kWh | none |
| Early termination fee | $150 | $150 |
| Real cost at 750 kWh | ~$105 | ~$109 |
| Real cost at 1,050 kWh (credit fires) | ~$71 | ~$151 |
At 750 kWh Plan A wins by four dollars. At 1,050 kWh Plan A wins by $80 because the credit kicks in. But at 950 kWh, Plan A loses badly because the credit misses and the per-kWh drops back to low-usage math. The advertised 9.9-cent rate never once matches this family's real bill.
Every EFL declares the plan's product type. The three you will see in Texas:
A June 2026 report from Retail Energy Revealed found that Texas households on the competitive retail market paid roughly $400 more per family than they would have under the pre-deregulation benchmark in 2024, an aggregate overpayment of about $2.8 billion across roughly 7 million residential shoppers. Ed Hirs, an energy economist writing in Forbes in July 2026, argued that retail-choice electricity markets consistently price above traditional regulated markets. Fixed-rate customers on a well-read EFL routinely beat this average. Variable-rate customers routinely miss it.
The Public Utility Commission of Texas requires every EFL to show plan type, contract term, all pricing components (energy charge, base charge, TDU pass-through), any usage credits with their trigger, the early termination fee, and the renewable content percentage. The rule also requires that the numbers on the EFL match what actually appears on your bill (allowing for TDU adjustments that the PUCT approves separately, usually in March or September).
If a plan you enrolled in bills you differently than the EFL you signed up under, you have grounds to file a complaint with the PUCT's Customer Protection Division at puc.texas.gov.
Where do I find my EFL if I already enrolled? Ask your provider's customer service line and give them your plan name. They are required by PUCT rule to send it. It is also usually posted in your online account under "Documents" or "Plan Details."
Is the price on my bill the same as the EFL price? The line-item breakdown matches (energy charge, base charge, TDU). The all-in cents-per-kWh figure may not, because your actual usage rarely lands exactly at 500, 1,000, or 2,000 kWh. Do the math with your real usage using the formula above.
Why is my TDU delivery charge different on my bill? The PUCT approves TDU rate changes twice a year (usually March and September). Your EFL number is fixed at enrollment. Your bill number updates when the PUCT approves a change.
Do all Texas EFLs use the same format? Yes. PUCT Substantive Rule 25.475 mandates a standard layout, so the same six numbers sit in the same six places on every EFL from every REP.
What does "100% renewable" on an EFL actually mean? It means the provider retires enough Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) to cover 100% of your usage. Actual power flowing to your outlet still comes off the ERCOT grid (a mix of gas, wind, solar, nuclear, and coal).
Can I switch plans if my current EFL numbers changed? If the change is a TDU pass-through approved by the PUCT, no (that is a market-wide adjustment). If the provider changed the plan itself outside a variable-rate or indexed formula, you can cancel without a termination fee. Call PUCT if the provider refuses.
Pull up powertochoose.org, enter your ZIP, and screen every plan on your shortlist using the 6-Number EFL Cost Test above. Do the real per-kWh math at YOUR usage, not at the 1,000 kWh headline. Skip plans whose usage-credit windows do not match your monthly range.
If you would rather have a Texas-based team read the EFLs for you, we can pull the current numbers for your ZIP and walk them line by line before you enroll.
Plan details and rates subject to change. Energy facts label available at ambitenergy.com. Subject to credit approval. This guide is intended for Texas households and small businesses. Rates and terms current as of August 2026.
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