How to read your electricity bill (every line item explained)

An electricity bill is two documents wearing one envelope. The front page is designed to be read: big number, due date, maybe a cheerful graph. The back pages are where your money actually goes, and they're designed to be technically available. This guide walks the whole thing, in the order it appears, so the back pages stop being a wall of abbreviations.

Grab your latest bill and read along.

The front page

Amount due and due date. The headline. Worth checking whether it includes a pay-on-time discount that disappears if you're late. If the bill shows two amounts (one if paid by the date, one if not), the gap between them is a conditional discount, and it tells you something about how your plan is priced.

Billing period. The exact dates this bill covers, and the number of days. Bills aren't all the same length: 90 days, 91 days, monthly. When your bill jumps, always check the day count before panicking. Twelve extra days is a 13 per cent bigger bill with nothing else changing.

Your average daily usage. Usually shown in kilowatt hours (kWh) per day, often with a comparison to the same period last year and sometimes to similar households. This is the single most useful number on the front page. If it's up on last year, the house is using more. If it's flat and the bill is up, the price moved.

Account and meter identifiers

Your NMI (National Metering Identifier). A 10 or 11 digit number that identifies your connection point, not you and not your retailer. It stays with the property when you switch retailers. Comparison and switching processes use it, which is why our upload flow reads it from your bill.

Meter number. Identifies the physical meter, which is different from the NMI. A property can have more than one meter (a controlled load, for instance, is often metered separately).

Meter read type. Somewhere near the usage detail, the bill states whether the read was actual or estimated (sometimes just a letter A or E). An estimated read means the retailer guessed from history. If your bill spiked and the read was estimated, that's your first phone call: you can submit your own read or request an actual one.

The rates table (this is where the money is)

Daily supply charge. A fixed charge, in cents per day, for being connected to the network. You pay it regardless of usage. Over a year it commonly adds up to several hundred dollars, which is why a plan with a low usage rate and a high supply charge can quietly beat or lose to its mirror image depending on how much you use. Low-usage households should watch this line closely.

Usage charges. Cents per kWh for the electricity itself. On a single rate plan this is one line. On a time of use plan you'll see peak, off-peak and sometimes shoulder rows, each with its own rate and its time windows. On a demand plan there's an additional charge based on your highest usage window in the period. If these words are new, our tariffs guide explains each type and who it suits.

Controlled load. A separate, cheaper rate for a specific appliance (classically the hot water system) metered on its own circuit and typically energised off-peak. Appears as its own usage line, sometimes labelled CL1 or CL2, or by an old name like "off-peak hot water".

Discounts. Shown as a percentage or dollar reduction. Read the fine print for the word "conditional". A guaranteed discount is real money. A pay-on-time discount is a bet the retailer is making about your habits, priced in their favour.

Solar feed-in credit. If you export solar, the credit appears here, in cents per kWh exported. It reduces the bill; it isn't a payment for being wonderful. Feed-in rates vary between plans, and a high feed-in rate can be paired with high usage rates, so the headline feed-in number alone tells you very little.

Concessions and rebates. If you hold a relevant concession, state rebates appear as credits. Retailers are required to apply them once registered; if you're eligible and don't see a line for it, ask.

The comparison boxes

Bills in most states must carry a statement comparing your plan against the regulator's reference price (the Default Market Offer benchmark), phrased as a percentage above or below it. In Victoria, bills also carry a "best offer" box telling you whether the retailer has a cheaper plan for you and how much you'd save. These boxes exist because regulators forced them to. Read them. They're the closest thing the bill has to an honesty panel, though they only compare within one retailer's own plans or against a single benchmark, not across the market.

What the bill can't tell you

The bill tells you what you paid under your current plan. It cannot tell you what the same usage would have cost on the hundreds of other published plans available in your area. That arithmetic is exactly what we built. Upload your bill, and our engine projects your actual usage across the plans on the government's energy register, prices conditional discounts honestly, and ranks by what you'd actually pay over a year. Estimates, not quotes, workings shown.

Related guides

Still puzzled by the rates table? Electricity tariffs explained. Got a gas bill in the same drawer? How to read your gas bill covers megajoules, tiers and the MIRN. Wondering whether your bill is normal? The average electricity bill in Australia. And if the question is simply "why is it so high", start at the pillar guide.