Regulated Electricity Prices Would Edge Up 1.5 Percent in January, but Grid Charges on Every Household Bill Fall 13.7 Percent Under ERSE's 2027 Proposal

Households still on Portugal's regulated electricity tariff would pay 1.5 percent more from January 2027, while the grid charges built into every bill, regulated or not, would fall by 13.7 percent. Those are the main figures in the 2027 tariff proposal that the Entidade Reguladora dos Serviços Energéticos (ERSE, the Energy Services Regulatory Authority) presented on 15 October.

The proposal now goes to ERSE's Conselho Tarifário (Tariff Council), which has until 15 November to give its opinion. ERSE takes the final decision by 15 December, and the new prices apply from 1 January. The numbers below can still change before then.

The regulated market: between 54 cents and 1.28 euros a month more

About 780,000 customers were still supplied on the mainland's tarifas transitórias (transitional regulated tariffs) at the end of June 2026. For them, the average price on normal low-voltage supply, the kind used by homes and small businesses, would rise by 1.5 percent between December 2026 and January 2027. The same change applies to customers in the free market whose supplier contract is pegged to the regulated tariff.

ERSE works through two typical households, with taxes and charges included (except the small DGEG fee):

• A couple without children (3.45 kVA contracted power, 1,900 kWh a year): an average bill of 38.31 euros a month from January, 54 cents more than in December.
• A couple with two children (6.9 kVA, 5,000 kWh a year): 99.01 euros a month, 1.28 euros more.

Measured over a whole year, the increase looks bigger. The 2027 average price would be 3.7 percent above the 2026 average, because the 2026 figure only partly reflects the rise that took effect on 1 October. ERSE notes that between 2023 and 2027 regulated prices would have risen by an average of 2.3 percent a year, below average inflation of 3.1 percent over the same period.

The free market: grid charges fall, but the final price is up to your supplier

Most people are not on the regulated tariff. The free market had about 5.85 million customers in June 2026 and accounts for more than 95 percent of mainland consumption. Their suppliers set their own prices, so ERSE's proposal does not fix what they will pay.

What it does fix are the tarifas de Acesso às Redes (network access tariffs), which pay for the shared transmission and distribution grid and are passed on to every customer, whoever the supplier. For normal low-voltage customers they would fall by 13.7 percent on average in January. The cuts for other supply levels are smaller at the top of the grid:

• very high voltage: down 1.3 percent;
• high voltage: down 8.1 percent;
• medium voltage: down 13.5 percent;
• special low voltage: down 13.2 percent;
• normal low voltage: down 13.7 percent.

Whether a free-market customer actually pays less depends on how much their supplier spends on energy in the wholesale market and on its margin, as ERSE points out. Suppliers usually revise their price lists in January, when the new access tariffs start.

Why the two numbers point in opposite directions

ERSE says the proposal is "strongly influenced" by wholesale electricity prices, which futures markets expect to be higher in 2027 than the level built into this year's tariffs. It links that, indirectly, to the conflict in the Middle East, through the price of natural gas. Higher energy costs push the regulated tariff up.

The same higher prices help on the grid side. Part of the access tariffs covers the cost of buying power from producers whose pay is guaranteed (Produção em Regime de Remuneração Garantida, guaranteed-remuneration generation). When wholesale prices rise, that power can be resold for more, and the gain goes to consumers. ERSE also expects to buy less of it in 2027 as those guaranteed contracts expire.

On top of that, ERSE estimates that about 303 million euros of tariff containment measures will feed into the 2027 tariffs. These come from sources such as the revenue from auctioning greenhouse gas emission permits, the sale of guarantees of origin for renewable output, the tax on oil and energy products (ISP) and the Contribuição Extraordinária sobre o Setor Energético (CESE, the extraordinary energy sector levy).

The proposal also keeps cutting the electricity system's accumulated tariff debt, which ERSE expects to fall by 529 million euros to 552 million by the end of 2027, the lowest level since 2010.

This is separate from ERSE's decision on 14 October to move part of the soaring cost of balancing the grid into a charge all consumers pay, which we reported on Thursday.

Azores and Madeira

In the islands, normal low-voltage prices would rise by 0.9 percent in the Azores and 1.1 percent in Madeira in January. Special low voltage would go up 0.8 percent and 0.6 percent, and medium voltage, used by larger businesses, 6.2 percent and 6.4 percent. Over 2023 to 2027, ERSE puts the average yearly rise for low-voltage customers at 1.7 percent in the Azores and 1.8 percent in Madeira.

Social tariff: the same 33.8 percent off

Households on the tarifa social (social tariff) keep a discount of 33.8 percent in 2027, set by Despacho n.º 12419/2026 of 13 October and applied automatically in both the regulated and free markets. According to ERSE, the discount is worth 14.04 euros a month for the couple without children and 34.44 euros for the family of four, with taxes included and counting the exemption from the excise duty on electricity and the partial exemption from the audiovisual levy.

Electric car charging: the network fee halves

ERSE also proposed the 2027 fees of the Entidade Gestora da Rede de Mobilidade Elétrica (EGME, the electric mobility network manager, the company behind the Mobi.E platform). The fees charged to charging service providers and charge point operators would fall by 52.1 percent, and the fee paid by charge point owners by 51.3 percent.

The effect at the plug is small. ERSE expects these fees to make up 1 to 2 percent of what drivers pay in 2027. In its worked example, a typical charge costs about 7.32 euros per 100 km at a normal charger and 10.53 euros at a fast one, and the cut saves about 15 cents per 100 km.

The public network is busier than ERSE had planned for. It handled more than 8.89 million charges in 2025 at 23,156 charge points, and ERSE now expects about 11.8 million in 2026, 79 percent more than the forecast behind this year's fees. That forecast had assumed the transitional regime would end on 31 December 2026. Decreto-Lei n.º 155/2026 of 31 July extended it to 31 December 2027, so operators have until then to tell the platform if they want to take their charge points out of it. Our guide to charging an electric car explains how the network works.

What to do

• Check which market you are in. Your bill names your supplier and says whether you are on a regulated (transitional) tariff. Only regulated customers, and free-market customers pegged to the regulated tariff, get the 1.5 percent change directly.
• Watch for your supplier's January prices. ERSE calls the start of the year a good time to compare offers, since free-market suppliers usually change prices then. Its online price simulator compares electricity and gas offers for homes and small businesses, and it suggests checking whether separate contracts for electricity and gas work out cheaper than a dual-fuel deal.
• Wait for 15 December. These are proposals. The final tariffs may differ once the Tariff Council has given its opinion.

ERSE's announcement links the press release, a question-and-answer document and the full proposal, all in Portuguese. The electric mobility proposal has its own release.