By Jasmine LawsShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberNew data has revealed which states have to pay the most, and least, for utility bills, showing the significant amount households have to pay to cover the costs.
According to the third-party bill payment service doxo's 2025 Utility Report, Americans are now spending $532 billion on their utility bills each year, and the average household pays a median bill of $347 a month.
Why It Matters
Many Americans are concerned about the rising cost of living in the country, as homeownership, childcare and utilities are all going up in cost, and as a result, many are now struggling to make ends meet.
A recent survey by the payroll processing firm ADP found that 64 percent of American workers were living paycheck to paycheck, up from the 46 percent who said the same in a 2023 study conducted alongside Visa.
A separate study from Bank of America released last week also estimated that the share of lower-income households living paycheck to paycheck was 29 percent, up from 28.6 percent in 2024 and 27 percent in 2023.
What To Know
Based on the doxo data, Maryland is the state with the most expensive utility bills (covering electricity, gas, waste and recycling, and water) and the average household in the state pays a median monthly bill of $546—or $6,552 a year.
Other states with particularly expensive utility bills includes Connecticut (median monthly bill: $488; cost per year: $5,856), Massachusetts ($481; $5,772), Washington ($466; $5,592) and Hawaii ($447; $5,364).
The state with the lowest utility bills is South Dakota, and the average household in the state pays a median monthly bill of $280—or $3,360 a year.
Arkansas also has cheaper bills (median monthly bill: $288; cost per year: $3,456) as does New Mexico ($288; $3,456), West Virginia ($295; $3,540) and Mississippi ($296; $3,552).
There are several factors which influence how much states pay for utilities, but most of the states paying more for their bills are in "deregulated jurisdictions, so the prices are formed in a very different way through various market mechanisms, retail auctions, and subsequently through retail choice mechanisms," Noah Dormady, a professor of public policy at The Ohio State University, told Newsweek.
It could also be the case that utility costs are notably higher for some in these states than the data reveals.
Dormady said that comparing the differences between states can be challenging because often utility costs are "under reported or misreported," as he said that bills he'd seen after interviewing customers for his research showed a "very different story" to what was presented in "aggregate reports."
"On top of this, there are all sorts of scams and problems with retail choice suppliers," he said. "Those additional costs that consumers are seeing on their bills often do not get reported, either."
Dormady said that recent media reports have said energy bills in Ohio have only risen by a few percent in the past decade, but he said generation costs have soared 91 percent in the last five years in Columbus, and total bills are up by more than 50 percent as well.
"That is quite the discrepancy. People know this, they see it when they pay their bills. And the aggregate data are often far from credible," he said.
What People Are Saying
Kenneth Gillingham, dean of Academic Affairs at the Yale School of the Environment and a professor of economics at Yale University, told Newsweek: "Electric utility bills are getting more expensive due to the cost of maintaining and upgrading an aging grid, increased demand for electricity from data centers as well as from electrifying heating, transportation, etc. Other utility bills, such as for natural gas, may or may not be getting more expensive. And Americans are noticing this and putting pressure on their representatives to reverse the trend."
What Happens Next
Concerns about the rising cost-of-living is likely going to cause President Donald Trump problems in the 2026 midterms, an election that will shape the latter half of his presidency.
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