A rate increase does not land on a household’s bill the moment a utility asks for one. It moves through a public process that can take a year or more, and a request filed with state regulators this month might not show up on a statement until next winter — or never, if regulators trim it down first. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association counted more than 275 electric and natural-gas utilities that have raised rates, won regulatory approval to raise them, or proposed raising them since 2025, and those three stages are not the same thing to a family checking a bill against last year’s.
Three Different Things NEADA Is Counting as One Number
A utility rate case starts when a company files a request with a state public utility commission to change what it charges. At that point the number is a proposal — a starting position in a negotiation that commissioners, consumer advocates and sometimes a state attorney general’s office will argue over for months. Some proposals get approved close to what was filed; many get reduced, delayed or split into phases before a commission signs off.
NEADA’s count folds all three stages together: utilities that have already raised rates, utilities that have a commission’s approval to do so, and utilities that have only filed a request and are still waiting on a ruling. In its winter outlook release, the group puts the figure at more than 275 electric and natural-gas utilities nationwide since 2025 — a scale of activity it ties to a broader affordability warning for the coming heating season.
That distinction matters because a proposed increase can still be knocked down. State commissions routinely approve a fraction of what a utility originally asks for, phase an increase in over two or three years, or reject a request outright when the record does not support it. A household whose utility shows up in the “proposed” column is not yet paying a new rate, and might end up paying less than the number in the initial filing.
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How an Approved Increase Actually Reaches a Bill
Once a commission approves a case, the increase does not necessarily appear in full on the next bill. Rate cases typically change two separate charges: a fixed monthly customer charge that covers meter reading, billing and grid maintenance regardless of usage, and a volumetric rate — cents per kilowatt-hour or dollars per therm — that scales with how much a household actually uses. Commissions frequently approve the two pieces on different schedules, and a case that raises the fixed charge tends to hit low-usage households hardest, since that portion cannot be reduced by conservation.
Many approved cases are also phased in over multiple years rather than applied all at once, which is one reason a rate increase approved in 2025 can still be adding to bills in 2027 or 2028. That phase-in is part of why NEADA frames the dollar impact of the current wave of cases as a multi-year total rather than a single winter’s cost.
Base rates set through a full rate case are not the only charge that can move on a bill. Many states also let a utility adjust certain costs — the price of fuel it burns to generate power, or infrastructure spending on poles, wires and pipes — through a separate rider that does not require a full case with a public hearing. NEADA’s count is specific to base rate cases, the type that changes what a utility is allowed to charge for the service itself, rather than these narrower automatic adjustments.
The Dollar Number Behind the Rate-Case Wave
NEADA estimates the rate cases it counted could add more than $101 billion to customer bills through 2028 if every pending case is approved close to what was filed. That figure is a ceiling built from proposed, approved and already-enacted increases combined, not a confirmed total, since a meaningful share of it still depends on commission rulings that have not happened yet.
The rate-case wave is landing on a customer base that is already stretched. NEADA’s winter heating cost analysis puts roughly one in six U.S. households behind on a utility bill, with residential utility debt nationwide approaching $23 billion. In 2024 alone, utilities disconnected residential electric service for nonpayment about 13.4 million times and natural gas service about 1.7 million times, according to the same NEADA data — the backdrop against which a new round of rate cases is moving through state commissions.
Where a Rate Case Gets Decided, and How to Check One
Every rate case in NEADA’s count is a matter of public record at the state level, not something decided in a utility’s back office. State public utility, or public service, commissions hold rate cases as formal proceedings with a docket number, a public comment period and, in many states, a scheduled public hearing where ratepayers can weigh in before a decision is made. Many states also fund a dedicated consumer or ratepayer advocate’s office that represents residential customers’ interests in the proceeding at no direct cost to the household.
A household that wants to know whether its own utility is one of the 275 counted by NEADA can look up its state commission’s docket search tool, where pending and decided rate cases are listed by company name and case number. Some commissions also require a utility to post a case’s status on the bill insert or company website during an active proceeding, which is often the fastest way for a ratepayer to find out where a filing currently stands.
Rising Bills Are Only Part of a Household’s Home-Cost Picture
A utility rate case is only one line on a household’s cost sheet. Property tax bills move on their own schedule, driven by local reassessments rather than a state commission docket, and the two pressures often land on a fixed-income household in the same year without either one being reduced to make room for the other.
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