Is My Energy Bill Normal?

Most people asking this question want to know one thing: whether they are being overcharged. The way to find out is not to compare your bill with a national average — it is to compare it with what your own rates would cost a household using a published amount of energy.

Enter your annual spend and the rates from your bill. The calculator costs Ofgem's low, medium and high consumption bands at those rates and tells you where you sit against them.

There is no single average energy bill

The figure quoted in the press each quarter is not an average of what people pay. It is Ofgem's medium consumption band costed at cap rates for a direct debit customer, which is a specific and rather narrow household: gas-heated, ordinary size, paying monthly, on the capped tariff rather than a fixed deal.

If any of those does not describe you — you have electric heating, you pay quarterly, you are on a fixed rate, you live in a region with a higher cap — the headline number was never about you. That is why this page asks for your rates rather than assuming them.

What Ofgem's bands actually are

Typical Domestic Consumption Values exist so that tariffs can be compared on the same basis. If every supplier quotes an annual cost for the same assumed consumption, the quotes are comparable. That is the entire purpose, and it is worth being precise about it, because the values are routinely reported as though they measured household behaviour.

They are a standard, in the way a standard test cycle for car fuel economy is a standard. Useful for comparing one thing with another, not a prediction of what any particular household will use.

The versioned figures behind this calculator come from the same source the rest of the site uses, and you can see the published consumption picture on the typical energy use page.

The benchmark moved in July 2026

On 1 July 2026 Ofgem revised the values. Medium electricity fell from 2,700 to 2,500 kWh a year, medium gas from 11,500 to 9,500, and multi-register electricity from 3,900 to 3,400.

That is a change in a standardised assumption, not a change in what households consume, and not a fall in prices. A benchmark bill quoted before the revision and one quoted after it are on different bases, and the gap between them is mostly the revision rather than the market. Any comparison spanning that date has to say which basis each side is on — which is why this page stamps the decision and its effective date under the table.

Ofgem's own framing is that households use around 7% less electricity and 17% less gas than at the previous review. Real reductions are part of it. But the number on a comparison page moving overnight is the yardstick changing length.

Legitimate reasons to be above the range

Landing above the high band is common and is usually explained by the house rather than the supplier:

• Electric heating or a heat pump. The electricity bands assume gas central heating. A home heated by electricity uses several times the electricity band and no gas at all.
• An electric car charged at home.Eight thousand miles a year adds roughly 2,400 kWh — comparable to an entire medium-band household's electricity.
• A large or poorly insulated home. The bands describe two to five bedrooms with typical insulation. A solid wall Victorian house sits well outside that.
• Someone at home all day. Home working, shift patterns and small children all lengthen the heating day.
• Your region. Cap rates differ by distribution region, so the same consumption costs different amounts — see the rates for yours.

When a high bill really is an error

Two checks find most genuine problems, and both take a couple of minutes.

First, are your readings actual or estimated? A run of estimates can drift a long way from reality and then correct violently in one bill. Submit a reading and see what happens.

Second, do the rates on your bill match your tariff? Put your unit rate and standing charge next to what your tariff says, and next to the cap rate for your region. If you are on a capped tariff and the rate is above the cap, that is a real error and worth raising immediately.

If a complaint is the right next step, the complaint letter generator builds one in your browser, and Ofgem's complaints data shows how your supplier handles them. Full workings for every calculator here are on the methodology page.

And if the problem is affordability rather than accuracy — the bill is correct and still more than you can pay — that is a different question with different answers. The consumer scheme register records what each government and supplier scheme is, what it is worth and where to apply. It does not decide whether you qualify, and neither does this page: nothing above is an eligibility test. Read the published criteria and apply through the official route. Your supplier is also obliged to offer a payment plan you can actually afford, and asking for one is usually faster than a complaint.