What electricity actually costs

A Thai electricity bill is counted in units, and on a rented home the number that matters is the one on the utility's own bill. This guide gives the utility's tariff for Phuket as it stands from the September 2026 bills, how we bill it on each kind of stay, and what a month with the air conditioning on comes to.

A unit is a kilowatt-hour

A unit on a Thai electricity bill is one kilowatt-hour (kWh)⁵. Phuket's electricity comes from the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA), whose residential tariff this guide quotes¹. The utility's bill has four parts: the energy itself, priced by tier¹; the fuel adjustment charge, the Ft, which is set for four months at a time²; a fixed monthly service charge¹; and VAT, currently 7 per cent, on the total³.

PEA's residential tariff from September 2026

From the September 2026 bills a home that uses more than 150 units in the month pays, per unit, before the service charge, the Ft and VAT¹:

A home that uses 150 units or fewer in the month is on a finer scale, from 2.3488 baht for the first 15 units¹. The tiers are progressive: the first 200 units of any month are at the lowest price, whatever the month's total¹. The Ft for September to December 2026 is 0.1623 baht a unit².

A worked example: 600 units

Take 600 units in a month, on the tariff above. The energy is 200 × 3.0000 = ฿600.00, plus 200 × 4.1584 = ฿831.68, plus 200 × 4.3583 = ฿871.66 — ฿2,303.34¹. The Ft adds 600 × 0.1623 = ฿97.38, for ฿2,400.72². The monthly service charge comes on top of that, and then VAT at 7 per cent¹³. Before the service charge, that is about ฿2,569 with VAT — roughly ฿4.28 a unit.

How we bill it

A rented flat is often metered by the building or by the owner, who buys the electricity from the utility and bills the tenant per unit at a rate written into the lease. Through us the tenant pays what the official bill says: electricity and water are billed at the official tariff, from PEA's and the waterworks' own bills, and invoiced with the rent⁵.

Since 4 September 2025 a landlord who lets three or more residential units may not charge electricity or water above the official tariffs, under the Contract Committee's notification on residential leasing⁴. Whether a given lease falls under that notification depends on who the lessor is and how many units they let⁴. Billing at the official tariff is what the notification asks of such a lessor, and it is how we bill on every stay⁵.

What a month comes to

On a long stay, two bedrooms with the air conditioning running overnight come to roughly ฿190 a day and one bedroom to about ฿120 — call it ฿3,500–฿5,500 a month for two people⁵. The two figures differ by one bedroom's air conditioning through the night⁵. Water is separate, billed at the official tariff from the waterworks' bill — a unit is a cubic metre, 1,000 litres — and typically ฿300–฿500 a month for two⁵.

On a short stay electricity is included up to 1,500 units a month, and what is used above that is billed at the official tariff from the official bill; water and cleaning are in the price⁵. Which kind of stay you are on is set by its length: Short stay or long stay: which price applies.

Reading the meter

What is invoiced with the rent is the utility's own bill, at its tariff⁵. A photograph of the meter at handover and another at check-out settles any question about the final invoice before it arises.