In living rooms, shops, and taxis across Egypt, the same question keeps coming up: “I did not change anything with my lifestyle. So, why is my electricity bill this high?”
Electricity in Egypt has gone through a significant transformation in the last decade. The country moved from frequent blackouts and relatively cheap, heavily subsidised power to more reliable and costly electricity that reflects its cost of production. Prices now more closely track the actual cost of generation and delivery, as reflected in the regulator’s tariff tables effective September 2024.
Since 2016, the Egyptian pound has weakened, fuel has become more expensive, and the state has slowly reduced subsidies. These circumstances are what now appear on your monthly electricity bill.
What actually changed with the bill
According to a report by Reuters, in August 2024, Egypt raised the electricity tariff for households by up to a 50 percent increase, which did not come as a single flat jump. Egypt uses a system of “slabs,” where the price per kilowatt-hour depends on how much a resident consumes. Lower use is charged at a lower rate, higher use at a higher rate.
The government raised the price of several slabs at once as part of its plan to gradually remove subsidies to meet commitments to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other lenders.
The raise has meant two consequences for a household.
First, if you have moved into a higher slab over the years, for example, because of air conditioners or more appliances, the price you pay for each extra unit is now much higher than before.
Second, even within the same slab, the actual tariff has been increased more than once in recent years, so the same consumption can still produce a bigger bill.
Underneath that visible change, another, quieter shift has been happening: the cost of making electricity has risen.
Ten years ago: cheap power, frequent cuts
Ten years ago, electricity felt cheap but unreliable.
In 2013 and 2014, Egyptians lived with frequent blackouts, especially in summer. The government kept prices low by spending large sums on fuel and power subsidies.
According to the World Bank’s country brief on Egypt’s energy subsidy reform, fossil-fuel subsidies alone reached about seven percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the 2013/2014 fiscal year before reforms began to bring them down.
To end the blackouts, Egypt launched an enormous power programme. The most visible part was a deal with Siemens to build three huge combined-cycle gas plants at Beni Suef, Burullus, and the New Administrative Capital. The three stations added 14.4 gigawatts of capacity and were fully completed in 2018, enough to supply up to forty million people with electricity.
How IMF reforms and the pound entered your bill
The economic story unfurls in 2016 as Egypt agreed on a three-year, USD 12 billion (EGP 600 billion) programme with the IMF under the Extended Fund Facility. The programme aimed to stabilise the economy, float the currency, and gradually phase out fuel and electricity subsidies that had been straining the budget.
In November 2016, the Egyptian pound was floated. Its value fell sharply from around EGP 8.8 to the dollar to close to EGP 18 to the dollar within weeks. Analyses by think tanks such as the Carnegie Endowment describe the pound’s flotation and subsidy cuts in 2016 as central pillars of the IMF-backed reform plan.
For electricity, this mattered immediately. The World Bank notes fossil-fuel subsidies were about 7 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in FY2013/14, with reforms after 2014 cutting the overall subsidy burden markedly.
Fuel that had previously been paid for at an overvalued exchange rate now had to be bought at the true market rate. The IMF notes that in 2014 and 2015, fuel and electricity prices were raised, and a plan for the gradual phasing out of subsidies was drawn up, which helped bring the subsidy bill down by almost three percentage points of GDP in two years.
At first, the state shielded households by keeping tariff increases moderate and continuing to bear much of the cost.
However, over time, electricity and fuel subsidies were reduced as a share of the budget, with the intention of freeing up funds for social programs and investment. IMF figures show that energy subsidies fell from around 5.9 percent of GDP in 2013/2014 to about 3.3 percent in 2016/2017.
Then came more shocks.
The COVID-19 pandemic, followed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, pushed global energy prices higher. Foreign currency inflows into Egypt came under pressure.
In early 2022, and again in 2023 and March 2024, the pound was devalued more than once. Reuters and the IMF both describe how, by 2024, the currency had lost over two-thirds of its value compared with its pre-2022 level, as part of a wider reform package that also expanded a newer USD 8 billion (EGP 400 billion) IMF programme.
Every time the pound weakened, the price in Egyptian pounds of every cubic metre of imported gas, every spare part, and every piece of equipment needed for power stations jumped. Even if Egypt bought the same physical amount of fuel as before, it had to pay far more for it in local currency.
Economists refer to this as “cost pass-through.”
When producers face higher costs due to currency and fuel fluctuations, these costs are gradually passed along the supply chain to factories, shops, and, eventually, households. That is why the debate about the IMF, devaluation, and subsidies can feel abstract, but its effects are very concrete on the electricity bill on your fridge.
Gas, imports, and the return of power cuts
The other piece of the story is gas itself.
The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) country profile shows that in 2023, natural gas supplied roughly 76 percent of Egypt’s electricity generation, by far the dominant source, with renewables and hydropower making up the rest.
The effect was visible in the summer of 2024. As temperatures rose above forty degrees in many cities, demand for cooling pushed the grid to its limits. Since most power plants run on gas, the spike in electricity use immediately translated into higher gas demand, pushing the grid to its limits and contributing to shortages that forced the government to introduce temporary, scheduled power cuts.
The government resorted to scheduled load-shedding, also known as planned daily power cuts, across the country. In July 2024, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said that Egypt would halt the load-shedding after new gas shipments had arrived.
For several years, Egypt hoped to be a major gas exporter. But, as domestic demand rose and production slowed, the balance changed. As domestic electricity demand rose and gas production slowed, the balance between gas exports and local consumption changed, forcing Egypt to prioritise the domestic market.
By late 2024, Reuters reported that domestic gas output had fallen to multi-year lows and that Egypt had become a net importer again, relying heavily on shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to get through the summer.
In June 2025, the Egyptian Cabinet announced that the country would import LNG to cover demand from July 2025 to June 2026, despite tight public finances. Egypt would continue to buy gas, in foreign currency, to keep up with electricity demand. Additionally, Egypt agreed to buy forty to sixty cargoes in 2025 and 160 LNG cargoes through 2026, at a total cost of up to USD 3 billion (EGP 150 billion), to avoid another summer of blackouts.
In simple terms, Egypt’s electricity system is still so reliant on gas that when gas is short, the lights go out – and when gas is expensive, the bills go up.
How this shows up in inflation and in everyday budgets
Egypt’s central bank and official statistics agency, CAPMAS, recorded extremely high inflation in 2023. By November 2025, inflation had fallen to 12.3 percent.
Even though inflation has since slowed, many prices have already adjusted upward.
When factories pay more for power, their costs rise for cement, fertilizer, food processing, and packaging.
When bakeries, supermarkets, and small businesses pay higher bills, they often increase consumer prices to survive. A 2025 Reuters report on price trends in 2024 and 2025 shows how food, transport, and other essentials have all been affected by higher input costs and by the devaluation of the pound.
In January 2025, food and beverage prices were up 20.2 percent year-on-year, and transport costs were up 33.6 percent, even as the headline rate eased.
For a middle-income household, inflation often looks like the following, even if the exact numbers vary: a few years ago, a family might have paid around EGP 400 (USD 8) per month for electricity. After the January 2024 tariff rise of 16 to 26 percent reported by Daily News Egypt, followed by the August 2024 jump of up to 50 percent, that same family might now find the bill closer to EGP 700 (USD 14) for similar consumption.
At the same time, wages have not risen at the same pace as prices for most people. Subsequently, the electricity bill feels heavier: it is growing in a context where almost everything else has become more expensive too.
Where renewables fit in – promise and limits
Renewables like the Benban solar park and the new solar plants are meant to break this cycle.
They can generate power without buying gas in dollars and can, over time, reduce how much Egypt spends each year on imported fuel.
Yet, because renewables still represent a small share of total generation today, the price you pay on your bill is still deeply connected to gas prices, the exchange rate, and subsidy policy, not only how sunny it was this month.
For now, the government has promised not to raise tariffs again before January 2026, giving residents a brief pause. At the same time, it is aiming to secure more gas and accelerate solar and wind projects. If those plans work, the hope is that a few years from now, Egypt’s electricity system will depend less on imported gas and be less exposed to currency shocks.
Until then, when you review your electricity bill, you are not just paying for the lights in your flat or the air conditioner in your shop. You are paying for ten years of economic reform, currency swings, gas deals, and slow but growing investment in the sun.
Why Are Electricity Bills Soaring in Egypt? first appeared on Egyptian Streets.
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