Eskom Tariffs 2026 — What You're Actually Paying Per kWh

South African electricity pricing is confusingly structured. Many households don't actually buy electricity from Eskom — they buy from their municipality, which buys in bulk from Eskom and adds its own margin. This means what you pay per kWh depends heavily on where you live.

Here is a clear, current breakdown of what residential customers are actually paying in 2026.

Eskom Direct Residential Tariffs (April 2025 onwards)

Eskom direct customers are mostly in smaller towns, rural areas, and some townships where municipalities haven't taken over distribution. These are flat per-kWh rates — no blocks or time-of-use complexity for residential customers on standard tariffs.

Eskom applied for an 11.83% tariff increase for 2025/26 and received a modified approval from NERSA. The rates above reflect the approved schedule from April 2025.

Municipal Tariffs 2025/26

Municipalities set their own tariff schedules, typically updated in July each year. Most use a block tariff structure — you pay a lower rate for the first block of kWh, then a higher rate once you exceed that threshold.

Tshwane (Pretoria)

Most households in Tshwane fall primarily in Block 2 (101–400 kWh). A household using 500 kWh/month would pay a blended rate of approximately R3.60/kWh including VAT.

City Power (Johannesburg)

Cape Town (City of Cape Town)

Cape Town's tariff structure is more complex with additional fixed charges. The effective per-kWh cost for most households works out to approximately R3.20–R3.60 depending on usage.

Ekurhuleni

eThekwini (Durban)

eThekwini charges approximately R3.20/kWh for typical residential usage, with a slightly lower lifeline tariff for very low-income households.

The Municipal Markup — What Are You Actually Paying For?

The gap between Eskom's bulk supply price (what municipalities pay Eskom) and your retail tariff funds the municipality's distribution network — the poles, cables, transformers, and metering infrastructure in your area. In well-run municipalities this is fair value. In municipalities with ageing infrastructure and high losses, you're partly subsidising inefficiency.

How Tariff Escalation Affects Your Solar ROI

South African electricity tariffs have increased at an average of 12–15% per year over the past decade. Even at a conservative 10% per year, your current R3.49/kWh Tshwane rate becomes approximately:

This is exactly why solar payback periods are shrinking year on year. Every year you delay, the grid becomes more expensive and the payback period on a solar investment gets shorter. A system that pays back in 7 years today would have paid back in 9 years if you had installed it three years ago.

What About Time-of-Use Tariffs?

Eskom's Homeflex tariff and some municipal TOU structures charge different rates at peak (typically 07:00–10:00 and 18:00–21:00) versus off-peak hours. If you're on a TOU tariff with a battery system, you can optimise by charging the battery from cheap overnight power and discharging during peak hours — significantly improving your solar ROI.