| COMMUNITY BENEFIT | Affordability, Empowerment, Transparency |
| KEYWORDS | Utility bills |
| REGION | State, Local |
| AFFORDABILITY STRATEGY | Utility Reform: Accountability |
| OVERSIGHT | Consumer Protection Agencies, Utility Commissions, Attorneys General, City Attorneys |
| POLICY MECHANISM | Legislation, Regulation |
Why This Matters
The general lack of transparency in utility billing opens the door to deceptive billing practices and limited utility accountability. In the absence of transparency, utilities are able to pass on costs associated with their business interests (e.g., lobbying, advertising) to ratepayers, or to hide profits or cost overruns, affecting utility costs and leaving affected ratepayers with little recourse. Moreover, a general lack of transparency makes it difficult for individual customers and stakeholders to identify the cost drivers behind bill increases, hampering their ability to effectively and meaningfully participate in utility ratemaking proceedings, support policy changes, or change energy consumption behaviors to reduce their bills.
Renters face additional transparency and accountability challenges related to how landlords manage utility billing. Renters who live in units where utilities are submetered, with billing managed by a third-party, or where landlords use Ratio Utility Billing System (RUBS) or other methodologies (for which there are no formulas or standards) to assign utility costs to tenants, can end up covering some landlord business expenses, be charged for non-residential, landlord-owned uses, or be otherwise charged inappropriately.1 Because third parties are often not subject to the laws governing utilities—even though they behave like utilities from the tenant perspective in terms of gas and electric service management—renters may be exposed to disconnections or inappropriate fees and lack complaint resolution pathways.2
Policy Solution
Requiring that utilities provide itemized, easy-to-read bills detailing all charges to ratepayers—and that landlords similarly provide tenants with a transparent accounting of utility charges assessed—protects ratepayers and tenants from inappropriate, deceptive charges. Easy-to-read billing also enables ratepayers and tenants to identify strategies—such as switching time of electricity use in response to time-of-use rates—that will enable them to lower their bills. Bill transparency also empowers customers to hold utilities accountable—e.g., to see the real drivers of any bill increases and to more effectively participate in utility commission ratemaking proceedings. Effective enforcement and accountability are required (e.g., fines) to ensure compliance. In addition to these protections, any third-party service providers must be subject to the same rules and regulations governing utilities.
Model Policy Features
Key features of utility billing transparency include:
- Requiring utilities, including gas and electric, to itemize charges on all bills, including dates of service, rate applied, usage during the term of service, public benefit charges, service fees/fines, shareholder profits, costs for generation, distribution, and transmission, and all other charges (e.g., advertising, lobbying).
- Requiring that bills are easy-to-read, standardized across utilities, and use plain language descriptions in English and other commonly spoken languages.
- Requiring detailed utility billing practices and documentation in tenant leases for master-metered and submetered utilities administered by a third party, including specifications regarding frequency of billing, timing of billing (e.g., within 30 days of service), dates of service, itemization of charges, and billing methodology for RUBS (e.g., whether charges are based on the number of occupants, square footage, or other criteria and whether charges include common areas).
- Provisions requiring landlords to provide tenants with itemized bills, including service charges and fines.
- Requiring that the total charges billed to tenants do not exceed the total utility bill for all units, not including late fees and the like.
- Applying fines on utilities and landlords for violations of bill transparency requirements.3
- Requiring that landlords post or otherwise make publicly available billing information, including historical comparisons (e.g., average monthly bills for the property over the previous year).4
- Requiring that third-party administrators are regulated as utilities (e.g., are subject to disconnection policies and other such tenant protections).
- Includes provisions for tenant review of meters and/or challenges to billing calculations.
Potential Limitations & Pitfalls
- The success of these policies require that public utility commissions and consumer protection agencies enforce bill transparency and accountability provisions applying to both utilities and landlords.
Complementary Policies
Other utility transparency-related complementary policies include:
- Cost containment for data centers and other major loads to ensure that costs associated with new major loads are not shifted to other consumers and that utility rate-setting for major loads and other customers is transparent.
- Limiting utility pass-through costs to ensure that customers do not bear the costs of utility lobbying, advertising, etc.
- Comprehensive and transparent data reporting to document that costs are being appropriately charged, benefits are reaching intended populations, and outcomes can be assessed.
- Conducting and Affordability Drivers and Impacts Study to break down cost drivers and use as a baseline for improvements.
Examples
1. Seattle, Washington, Third Party Billing Regulation – Ordinance 121320: An Ordinance prohibiting deceptive and fraudulent practices related to third party billing for master metered or other unmetered utility services provided to multi-unit buildings as a whole (2003).
Details:5
- Requires landlords to provide notice and disclosure of master-metered or unmetered (e.g., sewage) utility billing practices to tenants, both for utilities billed to the landlord and those administered by a third-party billing agent.
- Landlords must provide tenants with a written description of methodology for ratio billing.
- Bills must include an itemization of charges, including service charges and late fees.
- For submetered properties, bills must include current and previous meter readings and the read date.
- Allows landlords to include a fixed charge for utilities in lease agreements as a component of rent.
- For units that are submetered, requires that the tenant receive written notice detailing the location of the meter and any access requirements for the landlord (e.g., to read, repair, maintain the meter).
- Requires that the landlord post or otherwise provide tenants with the building’s three most current utility bills for master metered or unmetered utilities and notice of the City of Seattle’s Third Party Billing Regulation.
- Limits total charges for any utility service billed collectively to tenants to the total amount of the bill received by the landlord, not including amounts owed to the landlord for late fees, etc.
- Requires that third-party billing agents be licensed and registered.
- Places monetary limits on service charges, insufficient fund charges, and late payment fines charged to tenants.
- Allows for tenants to independently test meters in the building.
LIMITATIONS:
- For tenants who request independent verification of metering accuracy, tenants are required to pay for the cost of the meter test if the meter reading is within 5% of the meter reading reported by the landlord or third-party administrator.
2. Connecticut Standardized Billing Format – CT Gen Stat § 16-245d. (2024)
Details:
- Requires the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority to develop a standard utility billing format for electricity utilities that deliver service to residential customers.6
- Bills must include four categories of information, including supply (i.e. amount of electricity consumed multiplied by rate), transmission, local delivery, and public benefits.7
- Bills must be itemized to show charges associated with generation, unpaid amounts from previous bills, rates and usage for current month and each month over the past year in a visual format, payment due date, interest rates for unpaid amounts, and contact information for questions or complaints about bills.8
- Offers residential customers choices regarding how they receive bill notice information (e.g., via U.S. mail, e-mail, text).9
LIMITATIONS:
- Does not apply to gas utilities.
- Does not include information about utility/shareholder profits, lobbying and advertising costs, etc.
Written: October 2025
- Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia. (2025). Attorney General Schwalb Issues Alert to Help Tenants Understand How Utilities Are Billed & Make Sure They Are Not Overpaying. ↩︎
- Evans, N. (2025). Bipartisan bill would require greater oversight for utility resellers. Ohio Capital Journal. HB 265, recently introduced in Ohio, proposes to regulate such third-party utility service providers as utilities. ↩︎
- State of Louisiana, HB 913, Relative to Transparency for Utility Bills, 2024 Regular Session. ↩︎
- Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia. (2025). Attorney General Schwalb Issues Alert to Help Tenants Understand How Utilities Are Billed & Make Sure They Are Not Overpaying. ↩︎
- City of Seattle. (2003). Ordinance 121320, An Ordinance prohibiting deceptive and fraudulent practices related to third party billing for master metered or other unmetered utility services provided to multi-unit buildings as a whole. ↩︎
- A sample bill is available here. ↩︎
- Connecticut Office of Consumer Counsel. (2025). Understand your electric bill. ↩︎
- CT Gen Stat § 16-245d. (2024) ↩︎
- CT Gen Stat § 16-245d. (2024) ↩︎