# Energy bills in Great Britain: the price cap and household debt

What the Ofgem energy price cap has done to the typical household bill since it began in January 2019, and how much households now owe their energy suppliers, from the official Ofgem figures. The typical annual dual fuel bill for July to September 2026 is 1,663 pounds, and total domestic energy debt and arrears reached a record 4.79 billion pounds in the first quarter of 2026.

Source page: https://britishresilienceindex.com/deep-dive/energy-bills
Machine readable data: https://britishresilienceindex.com/data/deep-dive/energy-bills.json

## How to read this

The default tariff price cap sets a maximum unit price for gas and electricity, not a maximum bill: what any household actually pays still depends on how much energy it uses. The figures on this page are Ofgem's own 'typical' bill, for a dual fuel household paying by direct debit using a standard assumed amount of energy a year. That assumed amount, the Typical Domestic Consumption Value, has been revised three times since 2019 (in 2020, 2023 and 2026), each time lowering the assumed usage, so quarters on different sides of a revision are not perfectly like for like. Figures cover Great Britain; Northern Ireland has a separate energy market and is not covered by the Ofgem cap.

## A typical bill of 1,663 pounds a year

From 1 July 2026 the typical dual fuel household bill under the Ofgem price cap is 1,663 pounds a year, reflecting a lower assumed usage that Ofgem introduced this quarter. On the same usage assumption used for every earlier quarter in this series the equivalent figure is 1,862 pounds, up 13 per cent on April to June 2026. Either way, unit prices rose 13 per cent this quarter. That is well above the 1,137 pounds typical bill when the cap began in January 2019, 1.6 times as much, and above the 1,277 pounds typical bill in the last full winter before the energy crisis, October 2021 to March 2022. It remains below the 2,500 pounds a year households actually paid at the peak of the crisis under the government's Energy Price Guarantee, though the Ofgem cap itself, not actually charged at the time, calculated a peak of 4,279 pounds in January to March 2023.

- **Current bill**: 1,663
- **Current bill old basis**: 1,862
- **Current rise pct**: 13
- **Launch bill**: 1,137
- **Pre crisis bill**: 1,277
- **Epg peak actual**: 2,500
- **Crisis calc peak**: 4,279
- **Vs launch multiple**: 1.6

## Every price cap period, in full

Ofgem reviewed the cap every six months until October 2022 and every three months since July 2023. The bars shaded differently mark the Energy Price Guarantee period, when the government held the actual typical bill at 2,500 pounds regardless of what the Ofgem cap calculated; see the caveats for what households actually paid during that period.

**Series**

| period | bill | epgBill | isEpg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan-Mar 2019 | 1,137 | - | false |
| Apr-Sep 2019 | 1,254 | - | false |
| Oct 2019-Mar 2020 | 1,179 | - | false |
| Apr-Sep 2020 | 1,162 | - | false |
| Oct 2020-Mar 2021 | 1,042 | - | false |
| Apr-Sep 2021 | 1,138 | - | false |
| Oct 2021-Mar 2022 | 1,277 | - | false |
| Apr-Sep 2022 | 1,971 | - | false |
| Oct-Dec 2022 | 3,549 | 2,500 | true |
| Jan-Mar 2023 | 4,279 | 2,500 | true |
| Apr-Jun 2023 | 3,280 | 2,500 | true |
| Jul-Sep 2023 | 2,074 | - | false |
| Oct-Dec 2023 | 1,923 | - | false |
| Jan-Mar 2024 | 1,928 | - | false |
| Apr-Jun 2024 | 1,690 | - | false |
| Jul-Sep 2024 | 1,568 | - | false |
| Oct-Dec 2024 | 1,717 | - | false |
| Jan-Mar 2025 | 1,738 | - | false |
| Apr-Jun 2025 | 1,849 | - | false |
| Jul-Sep 2025 | 1,720 | - | false |
| Oct-Dec 2025 | 1,755 | - | false |
| Jan-Mar 2026 | 1,758 | - | false |
| Apr-Jun 2026 | 1,641 | - | false |
| Jul-Sep 2026 | 1,862 | - | false |

## Debt and arrears reach 4.79 billion pounds

Total domestic customer debt and arrears existing for more than 91 days reached 4.79 billion pounds in the first quarter of 2026, a record, and up 5 per cent on the previous quarter. Ofgem's own published year on year comparison puts the rise at 15 per cent since the same quarter a year earlier, which implies a first quarter 2025 figure of around 4.17 billion pounds. Two years earlier, in February 2024, Ofgem put the total at about 3.1 billion pounds, and in the summer of 2023 at about 2.6 billion pounds.

**Series**

| period | totalBn |
|---|---|
| Summer 2023 | 2.6 |
| Early 2024 | 3.1 |
| Q4 2025 | 4.55 |
| Q1 2026 | 4.79 |

- **Latest bn**: 4.79
- **Prior quarter bn**: 4.55
- **Qoq pct**: 5
- **Year earlier bn**: 4.17
- **Yoy pct**: 15

## Higher bills, and who cannot afford to keep warm

Rising bills sit alongside 9.9 per cent of households in England, around 2,472,012, who were in fuel poverty in 2024 on the government's Low Income Low Energy Efficiency measure, a low income household in a home that is expensive to heat. That figure predates the current price cap level on this page; the full picture, including where fuel poverty is highest and lowest, is in the fuel poverty deep-dive.

- **Fp rate pct**: 9.9
- **Fp households**: 2,472,012

## For energy bills

- The typical bill is still well above pre-crisis levels even after recent falls. How much of the increase is permanent, and how much tracks wholesale gas prices that could fall again?
- Household energy debt has kept rising even as the price cap has come down from its peak. Is debt now a lagging problem separate from the current bill, that needs its own solution?
- Ofgem has revised the definition of a typical household's energy use three times since 2019, each time lowering it. Does the typical bill still describe what most households actually pay?
- The Energy Price Guarantee showed the government can and will override the cap in a severe crisis. What conditions would justify doing that again?

## Sources

- Energy price cap (default tariff) levels, all periods since January 2019 (Ofgem) (https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-regulation/domestic-and-non-domestic/energy-pricing-rules/energy-price-cap/energy-price-cap-default-tariff-levels) · Crown copyright
- Debt and arrears indicators (Ofgem) (https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/data/debt-and-arrears-indicators) · Crown copyright
- Fuel poverty in England (British Resilience Index deep-dive, DESNZ data) (https://britishresilienceindex.com/deep-dive/fuel-poverty) · Open Government Licence v3.0

## Caveats and data notes

- The price cap limits the unit price of gas and electricity and the daily standing charge, not the total bill: a household that uses more energy pays more than the 'typical' figure shown here, and one that uses less pays less.
- The 'typical' consumption assumption behind these figures, the Typical Domestic Consumption Value, was revised in April 2020, in 2023 and again on 1 July 2026, each time lowering the assumed usage. The July to September 2026 figure is shown on both the new basis (1,663 pounds, what bills are actually calculated from) and the old basis (1,862 pounds, comparable with every earlier point in this series); the underlying unit prices rose 13 per cent either way.
- Between October 2022 and June 2023 the government's Energy Price Guarantee (EPG) overrode the Ofgem cap: households actually paid a typical 2,500 pounds a year (2,500 pounds was also kept for April to June 2023, when a rise to 3,000 pounds had been planned and was then cancelled). The Ofgem cap itself kept being calculated and published throughout, reaching 4,279 pounds in January to March 2023, but that figure was never actually charged. From July 2023 the calculated cap fell back below the EPG level, so the cap became the operative price again and the EPG ended.
- Figures are for Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and for direct debit dual fuel customers, the most common payment method. Standard credit and prepayment customers pay somewhat different amounts. Northern Ireland has a separate, unregulated energy market and is not covered by the Ofgem cap.
- Household debt figures cover domestic customer debt and arrears existing for more than 91 days. The first quarter 2025 comparison figure is implied from Ofgem's own published year on year percentage change, since Ofgem did not separately publish that absolute figure on the debt and arrears indicators page.
- The underlying source PDFs for every price cap figure on this page are archived in this project's data folder; each row in the compiled series cites the exact Ofgem document and URL it was read from.

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British Resilience Index, a non-partisan UK civic data project. Every figure is
reconciled to its primary official publisher before it is shown. Free to cite with
attribution: https://britishresilienceindex.com