Definition: A standing charge is the fixed daily fee on your energy bill that you pay regardless of how much you use. Under the October–December 2026 price cap it averages 54.83p/day for electricity and 29.68p/day for gas — about £308 a year for a dual-fuel home before a single unit is used.
What it pays for
Standing charges recover the cost of maintaining the wires and pipes (your DNO and gas network charges), metering, some government policy costs, and the industry costs of past supplier failures. They vary across the 14 GB distribution regions — the figures above are national averages under the Ofgem cap for October–December 2026.
Standing charges have risen sharply since 2021, partly because the costs of the wave of supplier failures in 2021–22 were spread across all bills and partly through network investment. Note that you pay one charge per fuel — a dual-fuel home pays both, roughly 86p a day, even when the house is empty. Prepayment and other payment methods carry slightly different capped levels.
Can you avoid it?
Some tariffs offer low or no standing charges in exchange for higher unit rates — worthwhile mainly for very low users, such as a lightly used second home. For typical households, the extra unit costs usually outweigh the standing charge saved. Ofgem has been consulting on standing charge reform, including requiring suppliers to offer low-standing-charge options; our explainer on standing charges and the reform debate covers where that has got to.
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