How Much Is Electricity in Cape Town in 2026?
Domestic · first 600
+5.8% on last year
Lifeline · flat
no fixed charge, free basic units
Home User · first 600
+ R424.30 a month
Home User pays off above
below this, Domestic is cheaper
The 2026/27 residential tariffs
| Tariff | Block | c / kWh | 2025/26 | Increase | Fixed charge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lifeline | 0–600 kWh | 283.04 | 260.51 | +8.65% | none |
| 600.1+ kWh | 283.04 | 260.51 | +8.65% | ||
| Domestic | 0–600 kWh | 413.79 | 390.94 | +5.84% | R74.77 / mo |
| 600.1+ kWh | 493.90 | 464.75 | +6.27% | ||
| Home User | 0–600 kWh | 355.95 | 337.66 | +5.42% | R424.30 / mo |
| 600.1+ kWh | 469.06 | 441.86 | +6.16% |
All rates include 15% VAT — the figure a household is actually charged. Effective 1 July 2026. Blocks reset at the start of each calendar month. Source: City of Cape Town 2026/27 Budget, Annexure 6.
7.5%, and why that counts as good news
Cape Town electricity went up on 1 July 2026, and the increase was the smallest of any major metro.
The national picture set the floor. NERSA approved an 8.76% increase for Eskom-supplied customers from 1 April, and municipal tariffs rose by an average of 9.01% from 1 July. Against that, Cape Town's roughly 7.5% average lands below every comparable metro — Johannesburg came in around 8.6%, Ekurhuleni around 12.7% and Buffalo City around 14%. The City objected publicly to the NERSA determination it was passing through.
Being the cheapest increase is not the same as being cheap. A Domestic household in Cape Town now pays 413.79 cents a kilowatt-hour for the first 600 units and 493.90 cents beyond that, VAT included. Every figure on this page includes VAT, because that is what actually leaves your bank account.
The increases are also not uniform across tariffs, and the pattern is worth noticing: Lifeline energy rose 8.65% while Domestic and Home User energy rates rose between 5.4% and 6.3%. The fixed charges rose fastest of all, at around 8.5%. More of your bill is moving into charges you pay before you switch anything on.
What your money buys
Enter what you spend or what you use. The calculator walks the blocks in order at the rates in the table above — it reads the same rows, so the two cannot disagree.
Prepaid purchases buy energy only. The Home User service and wires charge of R424.30 a month and the Domestic charge of R74.77 are billed separately and are not deducted here. Blocks reset monthly, so a purchase early in the month buys at the cheaper block rate.
Which tariff you are on, and why it matters more than the rate
Cape Town runs three main residential tariffs, and the difference between them is much larger than the annual increase.
Lifeline is for qualifying low-income households under the City's tariff policy. It is a flat 283.04 cents a unit whether you use 50 units or 900, with no service charge and free basic units included. It is by a distance the cheapest electricity in the city.
Domestic is the default for everyone else. Energy costs 413.79 cents for the first 600 units and 493.90 above, plus a fixed service and wires charge of R74.77 a month on a credit meter or R2.46 a day on prepaid.
Home User has the lowest energy rate of the two non-Lifeline options — 355.95 cents for the first 600 units, 469.06 above — but carries a R424.30 monthly service and wires charge. That is the trade: cheaper units, much larger fixed cost.
The crossover is arithmetic, and the calculator below will do it for you. Home User only wins once you are buying enough units each month for the cheaper rate to repay that R349.53 difference in fixed charges. Below that point, Domestic is cheaper, and a household on Home User with low consumption is paying for a discount it is not using.
New for 2026/27 is an opt-in residential time-of-use tariff for households with smart meters, where the rate depends on the hour and the season — peak winter units run at 898.23 cents while off-peak runs at 300.94. It rewards households that can genuinely shift load, and punishes those that cannot.
The crossover: Home User only becomes cheaper than Domestic above about 615 kWh a month. At 350 kWh, Domestic costs R1,523 against Home User's R1,670. At 900 kWh the order reverses: R4,039 against R3,967.
The court ruling that redrew your municipal bill
The other reason Cape Town bills look different this year has nothing to do with electricity.
The City had restructured its fixed water, sanitation and cleaning charges so that what a household paid depended on its property value. The Western Cape High Court found that approach unlawful. The 2026/27 budget reverses it: fixed water and sanitation charges go back to being based on water meter size, and cleaning costs move back into property rates.
The redistribution is real. Properties valued below roughly R2.8 million generally pay more in fixed water and sanitation charges under the meter-size basis, while higher-value properties pay less, for meters up to 22mm. And because cleaning moved back into rates, the 10.2% residential property rates cut the City proposed in March shrank to just over 2%.
None of this changes the electricity rates on this page. It is here because the electricity increase is the number that gets the headlines while the fixed-charge restructure is the one more likely to change what a given household actually pays.
Not everyone in Cape Town is a City customer
A significant number of properties in and around Cape Town are supplied directly by Eskom rather than by the City, and the tariffs on this page do not apply to them.
The distinction shows up in three places. Eskom-supplied customers pay Eskom's tariffs, which rose 8.76% from 1 April rather than the City's roughly 7.5% from 1 July — a different rate on a different date. They are outside the City's Steenbras load-shedding buffer. And they deal with Eskom directly for faults and billing.
Your bill or your prepaid receipt will tell you which you are. If it comes from the City of Cape Town, this page is your tariff.
Common questions
How much is electricity in Cape Town in 2026?
On the Domestic tariff, 413.79 cents a kilowatt-hour for the first 600 units each month and 493.90 cents beyond that, VAT included, plus a fixed service and wires charge of R74.77 a month. Qualifying Lifeline households pay a flat 283.04 cents with no fixed charge.
How much electricity does R500 buy?
It depends on your tariff. On Lifeline, about 177 units. On Domestic, about 121. On Home User, about 140 — but Home User also charges R424.30 a month separately, which prepaid purchases do not cover. The calculator on this page works it out for all three.
Should I be on Home User or Domestic?
Home User has cheaper units but a R424.30 monthly service charge against Domestic's R74.77 — a R349.53 difference. It only pays off once you use enough electricity for the cheaper rate to recover that. The comparison on this page shows where the crossover falls.
How much did Cape Town electricity go up in 2026?
About 7.5% on average — the lowest of the major metros, against a municipal average of 9.01% and NERSA's 8.76% for Eskom-supplied customers. Energy rates rose between 5.4% and 8.65% depending on tariff, and fixed charges rose about 8.5%.
What is the Lifeline tariff and do I qualify?
Lifeline is the City's subsidised residential tariff for low-income households, at a flat 283.04 cents a unit with no service charge and free basic units included. Qualification is set out in the City's Electricity Tariff Policy and is based on household circumstances rather than consumption alone.
Why did my water and sanitation charges change?
The Western Cape High Court ruled the City's property-value-based fixed charges unlawful, so from 2026/27 fixed water and sanitation charges are based on water meter size again and cleaning costs moved back into property rates. Households below roughly R2.8 million in value generally pay more on the new basis.
Methodology and sources
Every tariff on this page is taken from the City of Cape Town's 2026/27 Budget, Annexure 6 — the tariffs, fees and charges book — which is the City's own schedule of record, published in June 2026 and effective 1 July 2026.
All rates are shown including 15% VAT. The annexure publishes each rate three ways — regulated excluding VAT, unregulated excluding VAT, and the combined figure including VAT — and this page uses the last of those throughout, because it is the one a household is charged. The prior-year figures used to derive the percentage increases come from the same table, on the same basis, so the comparison is like for like.
The calculator walks the blocks in order at the published rates. It buys energy only: on prepaid, the service and wires charge is billed separately and is not deducted from your purchase, so the units figure is what a given rand amount actually buys. The monthly cost view adds the fixed charge back, because a monthly bill includes it.
Rates change once a year, with the City's budget, effective 1 July. That makes this the slowest-moving section on the site, and the freshness board is set accordingly.
- City of Cape Town 2026/27 Budget, Annexure 6 (PDF) — the source we follow
- Effective 1 July 2026; tariffs are reviewed annually with the City budget.
- Calculator arithmetic is checked against the published rates: R500 on Domestic falls entirely within the first block at 413.79c, giving 120.8 units.
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