Toronto Hydro Rates 2026: Complete Guide to Electricity Costs

Why Toronto Hydro Rates Matter in 2026

Toronto Hydro delivers electricity to nearly 1.7 million households and businesses across the city every single day. When rate structures shift - even by fractions of a cent per kilowatt-hour - the ripple effect touches virtually every resident, renter, and shop owner in the Greater Toronto Area.

Effective January 1, 2026, Toronto Hydro updated its Delivery Charges following approval from the Ontario Energy Board (OEB). That means your monthly bill looks different this year, even if your consumption habits haven't changed. The good news? The Ontario electricity Rebate (OER) jumped from 13.1% to 23.5% effective November 1, 2025, providing significant bill relief that largely offsets electricity price changes for residential consumers, long-term care homes, farms, and many small businesses.

This guide covers every pricing plan available to Toronto residents and businesses in 2026, explains who qualifies for each option, and walks through actionable strategies to keep costs manageable - including earning cashback on hydro payments through services like Neobanc. Toronto renters typically pay $150-$350 monthly for utilities depending on unit size and building type, which underscores why understanding toronto hydro rates is essential for anyone building a realistic monthly budget.

Understanding Your Toronto Hydro Bill - What You're Actually Paying For

Before comparing pricing plans, you need to understand what makes up your bill. Many customers focus exclusively on the per-kWh electricity price, but that commodity charge represents only a portion of the total amount due each month.

The Four Main Components

Every Toronto Hydro bill breaks down into four distinct cost categories:

• Electricity charges (the commodity): The cost of the actual electricity you consume, priced per kWh under whichever plan you've selected - Time-of-Use, Tiered, or Ultra-Low Overnight.
• Delivery charges: These cover the cost of delivering electricity from the provincial grid to your home or business. They include a fixed monthly customer charge and variable distribution and transmission charges based on consumption.
• Regulatory charges: Fees set by provincial agencies that fund grid maintenance, conservation programs, and wholesale market operations.
• Debt retirement charge: A legacy charge that applies to certain business customers, originally created to pay down the former Ontario Hydro's stranded debt.

Fixed Charges Every Customer Pays

Regardless of how much electricity you consume, Toronto Hydro applies a fixed customer charge to every bill. For residential service customers, that charge sits at $51.18 per 30-day billing period, with an additional transmission charge of $0.02241 per kWh effective January 1, 2026. Even if you kept every light off for the entire month, you'd still owe that base amount.

For General Service businesses drawing under 50 kW, Toronto Hydro charges a customer fee of $43.70 per 30 days plus a distribution volumetric rate of $0.04778 per kWh. Small business owners who want to manage these fixed costs alongside rent and other expenses can explore cashback on bill payments to offset some of the burden.

Who Qualifies for the Regulated Price Plan (RPP)?

The Regulated Price Plan covers residential customers and small commercial customers with peak demand under 50 kW who purchase electricity directly from Toronto Hydro rather than a competitive retailer. If you live in a house, condo, or apartment where you hold your own hydro account, you almost certainly fall under the RPP. The OEB sets and adjusts RPP rates twice a year - once on May 1 and again on November 1 - to reflect changes in the cost of electricity supply.

Toronto Hydro Rate Plans for 2026: A Side-by-Side Breakdown

Under the Regulated Price Plan, you choose from three distinct pricing structures. Each plan rewards different consumption patterns, so the best choice depends on when and how you use electricity.

Time-of-Use (TOU) Rates

Time-of-Use pricing charges different rates depending on the hour and day of the week. The winter 2025-2026 TOU rates (November 1, 2025 to April 30, 2026) break down as follows:

• Off-peak: 9.8¢ per kWh - weekdays 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. and all day on weekends and holidays
• Mid-peak: 15.7¢ per kWh - weekdays 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• On-peak: 20.3¢ per kWh - weekdays 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

TOU works best for households that can shift heavy-usage activities - laundry, dishwashing, EV charging - into off-peak hours. If you work from home during standard business hours and run multiple appliances throughout the day, this plan can get expensive quickly.

Tiered Pricing

Tiered pricing charges a flat rate regardless of when you use electricity, but the rate increases once you exceed a monthly threshold. For winter 2025-2026:

• Tier 1: 12.0¢ per kWh for the first 1,000 kWh per month (residential) or 750 kWh per month (non-residential)
• Tier 2: 14.2¢ per kWh for all consumption above the threshold

This plan suits customers who prefer predictability. You don't need to worry about what time you run the dryer. If your consumption stays consistently below the Tier 1 threshold, you'll pay a steady, moderate rate all month long.

Ultra-Low Overnight (ULO) Rates

The OEB introduced the Ultra-Low Overnight plan on May 1, 2023, specifically designed for customers who can shift significant consumption to nighttime hours. The rates from November 1, 2025 to October 31, 2026 are:

• Ultra-low overnight: 3.9¢ per kWh - 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. daily
• Weekend off-peak: 9.8¢ per kWh - weekends and holidays
• Mid-peak: 15.7¢ per kWh - weekday daytime hours outside peak
• On-peak: 39.1¢ per kWh - weekdays 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.

That 3.9¢ overnight rate is remarkably low - less than half the off-peak TOU rate. However, the on-peak rate of 39.1¢ per kWh is nearly double the TOU on-peak rate. This plan rewards discipline. EV owners, households with battery storage, and anyone who can program appliances to run overnight will see real savings. But if you forget and run the oven at 6 p.m. on a Tuesday, you'll pay a steep premium.

How the Ontario Electricity Rebate (OER) Affects Your Bill

The Ontario Electricity Rebate is a provincial credit applied directly to your bill, expressed as a percentage discount on the pre-tax subtotal. As of November 1, 2025, the OER increased from 13.1% to 23.5% - a substantial jump that cushions the impact of any rate adjustments.

What the 23.5% Rebate Means in Dollar Terms

On a hypothetical bill of $150 before the rebate, you'd receive a $35.25 credit. On a $250 bill, that credit grows to $58.75. For a household paying $200 monthly, the difference between the old 13.1% rebate and the new 23.5% rate works out to roughly $20.80 extra in savings each month - or about $250 per year.

The rebate applies automatically. You don't need to apply or opt in. It covers residential consumers, long-term care homes, farms, and many small businesses. If you're already working to reduce monthly costs through strategies like building your credit score or earning cashback on rent, this rebate offers another meaningful layer of relief.

Who Doesn't Qualify?

Large commercial and industrial customers with demand above 50 kW generally don't receive the OER at the same rate. If your business falls into this category, you'll want to work with an energy advisor to identify other cost-reduction strategies.

Toronto Hydro's 2025-2029 Investment Plan and What It Means for Future Rates

On November 12, 2024, the OEB released its decision on Toronto Hydro's 2025-2029 rate application and investment plan. This five-year plan shapes not just current toronto hydro rates but where they're heading through the end of the decade.

Why Rates Reflect Infrastructure Investment

Electricity distributors in Ontario are entirely funded by the distribution rates paid by their customers. That means every dollar Toronto Hydro spends replacing aging cables, upgrading transformers, and expanding capacity to handle electrification trends gets recovered through your delivery charges. More than 33,000 customers completed the survey for the 2025-2029 plan, and 84% supported the draft plan or one that does even more to improve services.

Projected Rate Trajectory

While exact year-by-year rate projections depend on OEB approvals, Toronto's aging infrastructure and the growing shift toward electric vehicles and heat pumps suggest delivery charges will continue rising modestly through 2029. The provincial government has signaled continued OER support to buffer these increases for residential and small business customers. Staying informed about these changes - and proactively managing your monthly expenses - is the smartest approach you can take.

Wholesale Market Pricing: What Competitive Customers Should Know

Not everyone pays regulated rates. Larger businesses and customers who've signed contracts with competitive electricity retailers pay prices tied to the Ontario wholesale electricity market.

How the Wholesale Market Works

The Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) publishes real-time and day-ahead market prices. The Ontario Electricity Market Price (OEMP) for December 2025 was $100.04/MWh on a weighted basis, calculated from the Day-Ahead Ontario Zonal Price of $99.33/MWh plus a Load Forecast Deviation Adjustment of $0.71/MWh.

Interestingly, the Global Adjustment rate for December 2025 was -2.92¢/kWh - a negative adjustment that effectively reduced costs for certain market participants. The highest Ontario demand peak occurred on June 24, 2025, reaching 24,862 MW, which gives you a sense of how summer cooling drives system-wide costs.

Should You Switch to a Competitive Retailer?

For most residential customers and small businesses, the RPP remains the safest choice. Competitive contracts can offer savings during periods of low wholesale prices, but they also expose you to price spikes and complex contract terms. Unless you consume large volumes of electricity and have the expertise to evaluate contract structures, sticking with the RPP typically makes more sense.

Practical Ways to Reduce Your Toronto Hydro Bill in 2026

Understanding toronto hydro rates is only half the equation. The other half is taking action. Here are proven strategies that deliver real savings.

Choose the Right Pricing Plan

Toronto Hydro lets you switch pricing plans at any time without penalty. Review your past consumption patterns and ask yourself:

1. Can you shift at least 50% of your usage to overnight hours? If yes, the ULO plan at 3.9¢/kWh overnight could cut your commodity costs dramatically.
2. Do you consume under 1,000 kWh per month consistently? Tiered pricing offers simplicity and competitive rates for moderate users.
3. Is your schedule flexible enough to avoid weekday peak hours? TOU rewards that flexibility with 9.8¢ off-peak rates.

Run the numbers with at least three months of billing data before switching. Toronto Hydro's website provides tools to compare what you'd pay under each plan based on your actual usage history.

Shift Energy-Intensive Tasks to Off-Peak Hours

This single habit change can shave 15-25% off your electricity commodity charges. Program your dishwasher to run after 7 p.m. Set your laundry cycles for weekends. If you own an EV, charge it overnight. These are small behavioral shifts with measurable results.

Invest in Energy-Efficient Appliances and Lighting

Switching to LED bulbs, upgrading to ENERGY STAR-rated appliances, and adding smart power strips that eliminate phantom loads all reduce your total kWh consumption. Lower consumption means lower bills regardless of which pricing plan you're on. Many of these upgrades qualify for provincial rebates through the Save on Energy programs.

Monitor Your Usage Actively

Toronto Hydro's MyAccount portal gives you access to detailed consumption data broken down by hour, day, and month. Review it regularly. Spot anomalies early - a sudden spike might indicate a faulty appliance or an HVAC system running inefficiently.

Earn Cashback on Your Hydro and Utility Payments

Most Toronto residents treat utility payments as pure expenses. They don't have to be. Services like Neobanc let you pay your hydro bill and earn cashback on the payment, turning an unavoidable monthly cost into a small but consistent reward.

How Bill Payment Cashback Works

Instead of paying your Toronto Hydro bill through your bank's standard bill payment feature - which earns you nothing - you route the payment through a cashback platform. You use your rewards credit card, earn points or cashback through the card issuer, and potentially earn additional cashback from the platform itself. Over 12 months, those small percentages add up to meaningful savings.

If you're already using a high-cashback credit card for everyday purchases, applying the same card to your utility payments is a logical next step. Pair that with cashback on mortgage payments or gift card purchases, and you're building a comprehensive rewards strategy across all your fixed monthly expenses.

Stacking Savings: OER + Plan Selection + Cashback

The most effective approach combines all three strategies:

1. Capture the 23.5% OER rebate - this happens automatically on every bill.
2. Select the optimal rate plan - match your consumption patterns to TOU, Tiered, or ULO to minimize commodity charges.
3. Pay through a cashback platform - earn 1-5% back on every payment.

Use the cashback calculator to estimate your annual rewards based on your typical hydro bill amount. Even 2% cashback on a $200 monthly hydro bill returns $48 per year - enough to cover a month's worth of delivery charges.

Special Considerations for Toronto Renters

Not every renter in Toronto pays a hydro bill directly. In many apartment buildings, hydro is included in rent. But for those in houses, basement apartments, or newer condos with individual metering, understanding toronto hydro rates directly impacts your monthly budget.

What Renters Can Control

If your name is on the hydro account, you have full control over your pricing plan selection. Switch to the plan that best matches your schedule. You can also control your consumption habits, thermostat settings (if you have electric heating), and appliance usage patterns.

If hydro is bundled into your rent, your landlord controls the account. In this case, your best move is to focus on reducing overall housing costs through strategies like earning cashback on your rent payments or building your credit score through on-time rent reporting - which can qualify you for better financial products over time.

Budgeting for Utilities as a Renter

When calculating your total housing costs, don't overlook hydro. A one-bedroom apartment with individual metering might see hydro bills of $50-$80 monthly, while a three-bedroom house with electric heating could easily reach $200-$350 in winter. Factor these costs into your rent affordability calculations before signing a lease.

Key Takeaways and Next Steps

Toronto Hydro rates in 2026 reflect a balance between infrastructure investment needs and consumer affordability. The increased OER rebate of 23.5% provides meaningful relief, and choosing the right pricing plan can further reduce your costs by 10-25% depending on your consumption patterns.

Here's your action plan:

• Review your current plan. Log into Toronto Hydro's MyAccount and check whether TOU, Tiered, or ULO best matches your actual usage.
• Shift consumption to off-peak hours. Program appliances, charge EVs overnight, and run heavy loads on weekends.
• Set up cashback on your hydro payments. Turn every monthly bill into a small reward by paying through a cashback-enabled platform.
• Monitor your bills monthly. Catch anomalies early and adjust your habits seasonally as TOU periods shift between winter and summer schedules.
• Explore broader savings. If you're a renter, look into cashback on rent payments. If you're a homeowner, consider cashback on mortgage payments too.

Every dollar you save on fixed expenses - hydro, rent, mortgage - is a dollar you can redirect toward savings, debt repayment, or the things that actually matter to you. Start with your hydro bill this month, and build from there.