This article was updated on 16 October 2026. It will be updated at the start of each quarter, when new rates take effect.
A prepaid electricity payment to the Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Limited (UEDCL) buys a different number of units depending on what the customer has already bought that month, not on the day the payment is made.
Units are measured in kilowatt-hours (kWh). The Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA) sets domestic rates every quarter, and its schedule dated 1 October covers October to December 2026.
The same method works for any payment in any month. Only the rates change from one quarter to the next, and a calculator below applies the method to the current ones.
How to work out your units
Start with the amount paid and take five steps.
- Remove VAT. VAT is 18 per cent and comes off every payment first. Divide the payment by 1.18.
- Remove the service charge on a first purchase. The charge is Shs3,360. It is taken once a month, on the first purchase, from what is left after VAT. Charges for earlier months in which nothing was bought are recovered at the same time, at Shs3,360 each.
- Count the units already bought this month. Add up the units on this month’s earlier receipts. The count is zero on a first purchase.
- Price what is left, band by band. Start from the count in step 3 and fill each band at its rate before moving to the next. Divide the money that falls in each band by that band’s price per unit.
- Add up the units from each band. Receipts show units to one decimal place and carry a rounding adjustment, so a result within a tenth of a unit is a match.
The rates and bands
The schedule sets four bands, counted in the units a customer buys during a month. Lifeline customers get less of the cooking band than others, so the table splits it.
| Units bought in the month | Lifeline customers | Other customers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 15 | Shs250 | Shs779.4 |
| 16 to 80 | Shs779.4 | Shs779.4 |
| 81 to 100 (cooking tariff) | Shs412 | Shs412 |
| 101 to 150 (cooking tariff) | Shs779.4 | Shs412 |
| Above 150 | Shs779.4 | Shs779.4 |
Households qualify for the lifeline tariff if their rolling monthly average consumption over the previous six months does not exceed 100 units.
Unused lifeline units carry over within the month. A first purchase that buys fewer than 15 units leaves the rest available at Shs250 for later purchases that month.
Between the 15th and the 81st unit, a lifeline customer pays the standard rate, as other customers do.
The cooking tariff of Shs412 is 47.1 per cent below the standard rate. Customers not on lifeline get it on all 70 units from the 81st to the 150th. Lifeline customers get it on 20, from the 81st to the 100th, and pay the standard rate from the 101st. ERA’s explainer for domestic customers, published in July 2025, sets the lifeline limit at 20 units.
Does the date of purchase matter?
ERA’s explainer for domestic customers says a customer gets the lower rates whenever in the month they buy. A payment on the 3rd is priced in the same way as one on the 28th, from the same count of units already bought.
What a payment buys is changed by two things. The first is how many units the customer has already bought that month, which decides which price bands the new payment falls in and whether it carries the service charge. The second is the quarter, because the rates change.
What resets, and when
A new month starts the unit count at zero. That brings back the 15 lifeline units, the climb towards the cooking band and the service charge on the first purchase.
Lifeline units that go unused carry over to the next month, and the units for months in which nothing is bought build up and are applied to the next purchase. A customer who buys 13 units in one month, with no other purchase that month, can buy 17 at Shs250 in the next.
Rates change each quarter; ERA sets them, accounting for the exchange rate, consumer prices and the international price of fuel. The standard rate for October to December is 3.1 per cent above a year earlier, at Shs779.4 against Shs756.2 in UEDCL’s notice for the fourth quarter of 2025.
Try it with your own numbers
Enter a payment, say whether you are on the lifeline tariff, how many units you have already bought this month and how many lifeline units you have carried over. The calculator follows the five steps above and uses the October to December 2026 rates.
How many units will my payment buy?
An estimate on the published rules. Receipts show units to one decimal place and carry a rounding adjustment, so a result within a tenth of a unit is a match. It leaves out lifeline units that may build up in months without a purchase.
Worked examples
The examples use the October to December 2026 rates, and the amounts are hypothetical.
Two payments in one month
Consider a customer who pays Shs9,000 on the 3rd and Shs15,000 on the 20th, with no arrears and no earlier purchases that month.
| Units bought | Lifeline customer | Other customer |
|---|---|---|
| First payment, Shs9,000 | 15.7 | 5.5 |
| Second payment, Shs15,000 | 16.3 | 16.3 |
| Month total | 32 | 21.8 |
The first payment works out as follows.
- After VAT: Shs7,627.
- After the service charge: Shs4,267.
- Lifeline customer: 15 units at Shs250 cost Shs3,750, and the remaining Shs517 buys 0.7 of a unit at Shs779.4, giving 15.7 units.
- Other customer: Shs4,267 at Shs779.4 gives 5.5 units.
After VAT the second payment is Shs12,712, with no service charge to take off. Both customers are in the standard band, so it buys 16.3 units for each.
A gap of 10.2 units opens on the first payment, where each of the 15 lifeline units costs Shs529.4 less than a standard unit.
The same Shs24,000 paid in one go on the 3rd would buy the same totals to within rounding, 32.0 units for a lifeline customer and 21.8 for another. On these rules the month’s total depends on the amount spent, not on how it is split into payments, provided the first payment covers the service charge.
A purchase that reaches the cooking band
A customer not on the lifeline tariff, who has bought 70 units this month, pays Shs30,000.
- After VAT: Shs25,424.
- Units 71 to 80 at the standard rate cost Shs7,794.
- The remaining Shs17,630 buys 42.8 units at Shs412.
That gives 52.8 units. The same payment would buy 32.6 units if every unit cost the standard rate. A lifeline customer gets the Shs412 rate on only 20 units, so the example does not apply to one.
Checking the method against a receipt
On 23 September 2026 a lifeline customer paid Shs11,000, as the first purchase of the month, and received 17.8 units. The rates charged match the fourth-quarter schedule.
| Item | Calculator | Amount (Shs) |
|---|---|---|
| Rounding adjustment (previous period) | -41.71 | |
| Rounding adjustment | 76.77 | |
| Prepaid electricity charge | 15kWh × 250 | 3,750 |
| Prepaid electricity charge | 2.8kWh × 779.4 | 2,182.32 |
| VAT | 9,292.32 × 0.18 | 1,672.62 |
| Service charge | 1 × 3,360 | 3,360 |
| Total | 11,000 | |
| Units received | 17.8 kWh |
The five steps give 17.84 units. The payment is Shs9,322 after VAT and Shs5,962 after the service charge. The first 15 units cost Shs3,750, and the remaining Shs2,212 buys 2.84 units at Shs779.4. The difference of 0.04 is within the rounding the receipt itself records.
Energy took 53.9 per cent of the payment and the service charge 30.5 per cent.
Counting every charge, each unit cost about Shs618.
What the published rules leave open
A first payment of less than about Shs3,965 does not cover the service charge once VAT is added. Neither the schedule nor ERA’s explainer says what happens to the shortfall.
For more on electricity tariffs, visit www.era.go.ug.
