Electricity · Updated monthly · Figures for June 2026
Why does Electricity cost 4.0× more in Hawaii than in Nevada?
The average US home pays 18.3¢ per kilowatt-hour. But the average hides a 4.0× gap: 13.1¢ in Nevada, 52.7¢ in Hawaii. Every state is ranked below, with the national average marked so you can see which side of it your bill sits on.
Fuel gets the headlines because the price is posted on every corner. Your electricity rate hides on page two of a bill, and that's a shame, because the gaps are far bigger. Fill a tank anywhere in America and the worst-case premium is maybe half as much again; plug in the same house in Hawaii and you'll pay 4.0 times what it costs in Nevada. Same appliance, same kilowatt-hour, wildly different bill. Here's the whole country, ranked.
| Rank | State | ¢/kWh | vs United States |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hawaii | +187% | |
| 2 | California | +89% | |
| 3 | Massachusetts | +61% | |
| 4 | Maine | +61% | |
| 5 | New York | +61% | |
| 6 | Rhode Island | +59% | |
| 7 | Alaska | +54% | |
| 8 | New Hampshire | +47% | |
| 9 | New Jersey | +36% | |
| 10 | Vermont | +33% | |
| 11 | District of Columbia | +33% | |
| 12 | Connecticut | +33% | |
| 13 | Michigan | +25% | |
| 14 | Maryland | +19% | |
| 15 | Pennsylvania | +18% | |
| 16 | Illinois | +8% | |
| 17 | Wisconsin | +7% | |
| 18 | Delaware | +5% | |
| 19 | Ohio | +5% | |
| — | United States | — | |
| 20 | Minnesota | −4% | |
| 21 | Indiana | −5% | |
| 22 | Virginia | −6% | |
| 23 | Colorado | −7% | |
| 24 | Alabama | −11% | |
| 25 | Georgia | −11% | |
| 26 | Oregon | −11% | |
| 27 | Missouri | −12% | |
| 28 | Texas | −13% | |
| 29 | Iowa | −13% | |
| 30 | Kansas | −14% | |
| 31 | South Carolina | −15% | |
| 32 | West Virginia | −16% | |
| 33 | South Dakota | −16% | |
| 34 | Wyoming | −17% | |
| 35 | Arizona | −17% | |
| 36 | Montana | −17% | |
| 37 | Florida | −18% | |
| 38 | New Mexico | −18% | |
| 39 | Washington | −19% | |
| 40 | Mississippi | −19% | |
| 41 | North Carolina | −20% | |
| 42 | Idaho | −22% | |
| 43 | Oklahoma | −22% | |
| 44 | Kentucky | −22% | |
| 45 | Arkansas | −23% | |
| 46 | North Dakota | −23% | |
| 47 | Tennessee | −23% | |
| 48 | Louisiana | −26% | |
| 49 | Utah | −27% | |
| 50 | Nebraska | −28% | |
| 51 | Nevada | −29% |
The gap between the dearest state and the cheapest
39.6¢ per kWh
Why the top of the table looks like that
Hawaii generates most of its power by burning imported petroleum, so its electricity bill tracks the oil market - no other state does that. The rest of the expensive end is mostly New England plus California: constrained grids, long delivery distances, and gas setting the price at the margin. The pattern is geography and infrastructure far more than anyone's politics.
And the cheap end
The cheapest kilowatt-hours cluster around hydro dams and wind belts - the Dakotas, the Pacific Northwest, states sitting on cheap local generation with short wires to the homes that use it. If your state is down there, your bill has less to do with virtue than with a river.
The national average, over time
One more thing the ranking can't show: direction. The national average rate, month by month, from the survey EIA runs across every utility in the country. The seasonal wobble is real - rates drift with demand through the year. And unlike pump prices, this line rarely comes back down: fuel spikes and retreats, electricity ratchets. Slide from 2001 and watch it climb.
What this ranking can't tell you
A rate is not a bill: households in cheap-rate states often use more, so monthly bills land closer together than the rates do. These are residential averages - your tariff, your utility and your usage band all move your actual rate. And the monthly series lands with a lag of about two months, so this is a recent photograph, not a live feed.
Further reading
All of our numbers come from live, free government data - here, the US Energy Information Administration's monthly electricity figures (residential sector, average price, all fifty states). The ranking and every comparison on this page are calculated from that table, and the page updates when EIA does.
If you want to dig deeper, EIA's electricity data browser carries every state's history free - and if a chart here is useful, take it: the copy button includes the source and a link back.