EV Charging Cost by State: All 50 Rates (2026)

Ask what it costs to charge an EV and the honest answer starts with a question back: in which state? In May 2026 the average residential electricity rate ran from 12.35 cents per kilowatt-hour in Idaho to 52 cents in Hawaii, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That is a 4.2x spread on the identical kilowatt-hour.

So the 50-state table matters, and you will find it below with the monthly cost worked out for every state. But it is also the most over-read number in EV ownership, because it answers a narrower question than most people think they are asking. Two things your state rate does not tell you:

• Whether an EV saves you money where you live. That depends on your petrol price as much as your electricity price, and the two rankings barely line up. California has the second-most expensive electricity in America and is still a top-ten state for EV fuel savings.
• What you will actually pay. The state average is a blended figure covering every household on every tariff. It is closer to a ceiling than a quote.

How these numbers were worked out

Every figure below uses the same driver so the states are comparable. That driver covers 1,150 miles a month (about 13,800 a year, close to the U.S. average), in an EV managing 3.5 miles per kWh measured at the wall socket, which already absorbs the roughly 10% lost as heat during AC charging. That works out to 329 kWh a month.

The petrol comparison is a 30 mpg car covering the same miles: 38.3 gallons a month. Electricity rates are EIA residential averages for May 2026. Petrol prices are AAA state averages for 5 August 2026. For a single model worked out end to end, see our Ioniq 5 charging breakdown. If your car, your mileage or your local prices differ, the ranking holds even when the dollar amounts do not — and the Department of Energy’s Vehicle Cost Calculator will run your exact numbers.

EV charging cost by state: all 50

Sorted alphabetically so you can find yours. “Monthly saving” is the petrol column minus the charging column.

One caveat worth knowing about the source data: EIA state averages are calculated by dividing residential revenue by residential sales. They are not a tariff anybody signs up for. They fold in fixed monthly charges, taxes, and the mix of customers on every plan in the state.

The cheapest-electricity list is the wrong list

Here is where the ordinary state-rate table quietly misleads people. Rank the states by electricity price and you get one order. Rank them by how much an EV actually saves the driver and you get a substantially different one, because petrol prices swing just as hard — from $3.57 a gallon in Indiana to $5.64 in California.

The biggest mover is California. Its 33.25¢/kWh is the second-highest rate in the country, 49th out of 50 on affordability. Yet at $5.64 petrol, a California EV driver saves about $107 a month, which is the ninth-best result in the nation. A 40-place jump between the two rankings.

It runs the other way too. Oklahoma has the third-cheapest electricity in America, but petrol there is $3.67, so its saving ranks 18th. Louisiana is 10th on power and 26th on savings. Tennessee is 12th and 27th. Indiana has mid-pack electricity and the cheapest petrol in the country, which drops it to 43rd for savings despite nothing being expensive there.

The practical version: cheap electricity is worth less to you if the petrol you are replacing was already cheap. What you want is a wide gap between the two, not a low number on one side.

Where an EV saves the most

These are all Western states, and they all share the same structure: hydro or wind keeping electricity cheap, plus West Coast fuel blends and higher fuel taxes keeping petrol expensive. Washington is the clearest case in America — the 15th-cheapest electricity paired with the third-highest petrol price. An EV there costs about a quarter of what the equivalent petrol car costs to fuel.

Where it saves the least

New England dominates this end for the mirror-image reason: expensive imported power, but petrol prices sitting almost exactly at the national average. The gap is real but narrow. In Rhode Island your electricity bill for driving comes to 63% of what petrol would have cost. In Washington it is 25%.

Hawaii is the one genuine close call in the country. Charging costs about $171 a month against $209 for petrol — still cheaper, but by only 18%. That margin is thin enough that a very efficient hybrid competes on running cost, and it got thinner this year: Hawaii’s residential rate climbed 26.7% in twelve months, the steepest rise of any state.

The public charging flip: 48 states where petrol wins

Everything above assumes you charge at home. That assumption carries the whole conclusion, and it is worth seeing why.

Electrify America, the largest open fast-charging network in the country, averaged 61.7 cents per kWh across 1,168 tracked stations in July 2026. At 3.5 miles per kWh that works out to 17.6 cents a mile. A 30 mpg petrol car matches 17.6 cents a mile when petrol costs $5.29 a gallon.

In August 2026, only two states were above that line: California at $5.64 and Hawaii at $5.46. Which means that in 48 of the 50 states, a comparable petrol car costs less per mile than guest-rate fast charging — including Texas, Florida, Ohio, Georgia, the Carolinas and every state in the South.

A network membership changes the picture. Electrify America’s Pass+ cuts about 25%, dropping the break-even to $3.97 a gallon and putting roughly half the country back on the EV side; Tesla Superchargers off-peak can run lower still. The takeaway is not “public charging is a rip-off” — it is that a driver who fast-charges most of the time is not running the same economics as the home charger, and in much of the country is not saving anything at all. Our full breakdown of public EV charging costs goes through the network rates, idle fees and where memberships pay off, and ChargePoint’s pricing works on a different model again, where the site host sets the rate.

If you cannot charge at home — an apartment, no driveway, street parking — run your own numbers before you buy, using your local petrol price and the actual rate at the chargers you would use. We wrote a guide specifically for owning an EV without home charging, including when the honest answer is “not yet”.

The numbers are moving, and not in the direction you’d guess

Both sides of this comparison shifted hard over the past year, and they shifted unevenly.

Electricity rose 6.2% nationally — but that average hides real spread. Illinois jumped 28.4% and Hawaii 26.7%. Maryland rose 14.6%, Ohio 14.2%, New Hampshire 13.8%. Connecticut went the other way and fell 13.4%. If you bought an EV two years ago on the strength of your state’s rate, that rate may no longer be the one you were counting on.

Petrol moved more. Average pump prices rose by double digits in every single state over the year to August 2026, and the national average climbed 7.5% in the single month between early July and early August. On balance the EV advantage widened almost everywhere this year, which is the opposite of what the headlines about rising power bills would suggest.

Three things that change your number more than your state does

1. Your rate plan. Most utilities now offer time-of-use or dedicated EV tariffs with a cheap overnight window, and overnight is exactly when a home charger runs. In high-rate states this is the single biggest lever available to you — larger than anything about the car. Your state’s average tells you nothing about whether you are on the right plan, and switching is usually a phone call.

2. Your real efficiency. The 3.5 miles per kWh used here is a mild-weather figure. Cold weather can cut it by 20 to 40%, mostly through cabin heating rather than the battery itself — see why EV range drops in winter. Larger or all-terrain tyres cost you too. A driver getting 2.8 miles per kWh in a Maine January is paying a very different bill from the table above.

3. Your home-to-public mix. Charge 80% at home and 20% on DC fast chargers and your blended cost at the national average is roughly 24 cents per kWh, not 18.44. Every article that quotes you a home rate is quietly assuming a mix you may not have. Our breakdown of what it really costs to charge an EV at home works through the full home-side maths, and the monthly cost guide covers what this does to your electricity bill.

Fuel is also only one line in the ledger. Tyres, insurance, depreciation and maintenance all move in different directions for EVs — our five-year EV vs petrol comparison is the honest version, including the three categories where petrol wins.

Frequently asked questions

Which state is cheapest for charging an EV?

Idaho, at 12.35 cents per kWh — about $41 a month for 1,150 miles of driving. Utah (12.96¢) and Oklahoma (13.38¢) follow. For actual savings rather than raw rate, Washington leads.

Which state is the most expensive?

Hawaii, at 52 cents per kWh, roughly $171 a month. That is more than four times Idaho’s figure. California is second at 33.25 cents, then New York at 29.93 cents.

Is charging at home cheaper than petrol in every state?

Yes. On August 2026 prices there is no state where home charging costs more than petrol for the same miles. The margin ranges from 75% cheaper in Washington down to 18% cheaper in Hawaii. Public fast charging is a different story — at guest rates petrol wins in 48 of 50 states.

What does a full charge cost in my state?

Take a typical 10–80% top-up on a 75 kWh battery, which adds about 52 kWh. At Idaho’s rate that is $6.42, at the national average $9.59, and in Hawaii $27.04. Multiply 52 by your state’s rate from the table to get yours.

Does my state’s average rate equal what I pay?

Rarely. It is revenue divided by sales across every residential customer in the state, so it mixes tariffs, fixed charges and taxes. Your own utility bill divided by your own kWh is the number that matters; the state average is for comparison between places, not for budgeting.

Do public charging prices track state electricity rates?

Loosely. Networks buy on commercial tariffs with demand charges attached, and often price regionally rather than by state. Every major network charges more in Alaska and Hawaii, but a cheap-power state does not reliably mean cheap fast charging.

The short version

Your state rate sets the bill: 12.35 cents in Idaho to 52 cents in Hawaii, national average 18.44, and $61 a month at that average for 1,150 miles. But the rate on its own does not tell you whether an EV is worth it — the gap between your electricity and your petrol does, and that gap puts California in the top ten despite near-worst-in-nation power prices. Home charging beats petrol in all 50 states without exception. Public fast charging does not — at guest rates it loses to petrol in 48 of them. And the biggest single thing you can do about your own number is check whether your utility has an overnight EV tariff, because that will move it further than moving state would.