The average U.S. household paid noticeably more for electricity in June 2026, even though it used a little less of it. That’s the finding inside the Energy Information Administration’s latest Electricity Monthly Update, released August 26, 2026 with June 2026 data. Residential electricity sales edged down for the month, but the average price residential customers paid per kilowatt-hour rose faster than what businesses or factories paid. For a lot of households, the higher summer bill had less to do with running the air conditioner more and more to do with the price of the same kilowatt-hour going up.
Residential electricity use actually dropped 0.2 percent
EIA’s data show residential retail electricity sales came in at 135,594 thousand megawatthours in June 2026, down 0.2 percent from June 2025. That’s a small decline, but it cuts against the instinct that a hot summer month should push household electricity use higher. Year to date, residential sales are still running ahead of the same point in 2025, so June’s dip looks more like a one-month wrinkle than a new trend.
The residential sector wasn’t the only one using less power. The transportation sector, a small EIA category that includes electricity metered separately for things like transit and EV charging infrastructure, saw sales fall 11.9 percent in June. Commercial sales, at 134,994 thousand megawatthours, and industrial sales, at 91,225 thousand megawatthours, moved the other direction, up 3.4 percent and 1.3 percent, which is part of why total nationwide retail sales still rose 1.5 percent even with homes using slightly less.
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The residential rate climbed 5 percent, the steepest increase of any sector
The number driving this story is price, not consumption. Average revenue per kilowatt-hour for residential customers hit 18.34 cents in June 2026, up 5.0 percent from June 2025, according to EIA’s Electricity Monthly Update. That’s the largest year-over-year increase of the four customer classes EIA tracks. Commercial customers paid 14.19 cents per kilowatt-hour, up 4.8 percent, and industrial customers paid 9.17 cents, up 3.0 percent. Only the small transportation-charging category, at 14.65 cents, rose faster, up 8.8 percent. Blended across all four sectors, the national average revenue per kilowatt-hour was 14.48 cents in June, up 4.5 percent, the figure usually cited as “the” price of electricity even though it combines four very different kinds of customers.
EIA doesn’t collect retail electricity rates directly. Instead, it divides the total revenue utilities report from a sector’s sales by the total volume sold, producing what its glossary calls average revenue per kilowatt-hour, a proxy for the retail rate. That distinction matters here: the residential number reflects what utilities actually billed and collected in June, not a posted rate card or an estimate.
Businesses used more power and still paid a smaller price increase
Commercial electricity sales rose 3.4 percent in June, the largest increase of any sector, while the commercial rate rose 4.8 percent, less than the residential increase. Industrial customers used 1.3 percent more power at a 3.0 percent rate increase, the smallest of the four sectors. In plain terms, the sector using more power for machinery, refrigeration and cooling saw a smaller percentage jump in what it paid per unit than the sector that used less.
EIA’s own report doesn’t pin down exactly why. Charges for retail electric service are based primarily on rates approved by state regulators, and in some states competitive retail suppliers offer power at a market-based price on top of that structure. The data don’t explain why residential rates moved further this year than commercial ones, but they do show the residential class absorbing the single largest percentage increase in the report.
Forty-three states paid more for electricity than a year ago
The rate increase wasn’t even across the country. EIA’s state-by-state comparison shows 43 states and the District of Columbia saw average revenue per kilowatt-hour rise from June 2025 to June 2026, while seven states saw it fall. Hawaii posted the largest increase, up 35.5 percent, followed by Delaware and the District of Columbia, both up 13.5 percent. Connecticut had the largest decrease, down 9.7 percent, followed by New Mexico, down 8.9 percent, and West Virginia, down 3.9 percent.
On raw cost per kilowatt-hour rather than year-over-year change, California, Massachusetts and Rhode Island had the highest average revenues among the lower 48 states, at 28.50, 25.72 and 25.30 cents respectively. New Mexico, North Dakota and Wyoming had the lowest, at 8.96, 9.01 and 10.10 cents. A household’s own bill trend this year depends far more on which of those columns it falls into than on the national average, and anyone can check their own state’s numbers directly in EIA’s electricity data browser, the same tool behind the maps in this report.
The pattern EIA will test again next month
EIA’s next Electricity Monthly Update, covering July 2026 data, is scheduled for release September 24, 2026. That report will show whether the residential usage dip was tied to weather, since cooling degree days, the measure EIA uses to track air-conditioning demand, actually fell in 38 states compared with last June, or whether the price gap between what households and businesses pay keeps widening. For now, the June data is clear on one point: the higher residential bill this summer wasn’t primarily a story about people running more appliances. It was a story about the price of the same kilowatt-hour rising faster for homes than for anyone else.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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