Why electricity prices differ so much across Switzerland

A wide gap between the dearest and the cheapest places

Kestenholz has the highest electricity price in the data, at 45.88 Rp./kWh, with Niederhelfenschwil just behind at 45.82 Rp./kWh and Bischofszell third at 41.05 Rp./kWh. At the other end of the table, Sils im Domleschg charges 12.15 Rp./kWh. The median across municipalities is 26.85 Rp./kWh, so the dearest places sit far above the middle of the table and the cheapest far below it.

The ten places in the figure are all small municipalities. Large cities do not appear there: counting from the expensive end of the table, Basel is ranked 63 of 1,805 and Zürich is ranked 1,492 of 1,805. Small municipalities fill the bottom of the table as well, so size alone does not decide the price.

Distance on the map explains little. Bischofszell and Frauenfeld sit in the same canton, Thurgau, yet the price is 41.05 Rp./kWh in the former and 25.21 Rp./kWh in the latter. The same split appears in St. Gallen, where Niederhelfenschwil charges 45.82 Rp./kWh and St. Gallen charges 31.57 Rp./kWh.

Where electricity costs least, and the role of levies

The eight lowest prices in the country all belong to Grisons. Sils im Domleschg is cheapest at 12.15 Rp./kWh, followed by Brusio at 13.15 Rp./kWh, Andeer at 13.56 Rp./kWh and Thusis at 15.86 Rp./kWh.

A low price does not mean low levies. Thusis, Sils im Domleschg and Andeer are the three places where levies and charges weigh most, at 52.3%, 51.9% and 46.5% of the price. All three are in Grisons, and all three are among the cheapest places in the country.

Where the levy share is this large, grid usage barely registers: in Thusis it makes up only 8.6% of the price, and the full price, at 15.86 Rp./kWh, compares with a national median of 26.85 Rp./kWh. A share is a proportion, so it can be large simply because the rest of the price is small, and that is what the figures for these places show.

What the big cities pay in a year

The figure compares annual bills rather than prices per kilowatt-hour, which makes the gaps easier to read in francs. All bills exclude VAT, so an actual invoice would be higher; what matters here is the difference between cities.

The annual bill for the typical household is 1,108 CHF/year in Zürich and 1,099 CHF/year in Geneva: almost the same, although the two cities lie in different language regions.

Basel, Bern and St. Gallen sit clearly higher than this pair, at 1,504 CHF/year, 1,400 CHF/year and 1,421 CHF/year.

At the low end of the figure, Zug stands out at 952 CHF/year, below Zürich, Geneva, Lucerne and Lugano.

Energy, grid and levies: the three parts of a price

A price per kilowatt-hour bundles three parts: the energy itself, the use of the local grid, and levies and charges. In the median municipality the grid accounts for 47.0% of the price, the energy for 42.2% and levies for 11.1%.

The mix changes the picture of a city. In Basel, levies and charges make up 30.2% of the price (ranked 4 of 1,805), well above the 14.6% in Zürich. Its neighbours Bettingen and Riehen charge exactly the same price, 33.42 Rp./kWh, which suggests that prices follow the supplier rather than the municipal boundary.

Zug has a different mix. Grid usage makes up 59.3% of its price and energy supply only 26.8% (ranked 1,793 of 1,805), so the energy itself accounts for a comparatively small part of the bill.

Five years of prices moving apart

Prices have not moved in step. Over five years the price in Niederhelfenschwil rose by 147.9% and in Kestenholz by 132.2%. In Cham, by contrast, the change is −4.6%. The median change across municipalities is 30.2%. A large percentage change is easier to reach from a low starting point, so the change is best read next to the price level.

The same two places head both lists. Kestenholz has the highest price and the second-largest five-year change, while Niederhelfenschwil has the second-highest price and the largest change. For these two, a steep change over five years and a top-of-the-table price go together.

In the canton of Zug, prices in several municipalities stayed close to where they started: the five-year change is 1.1% in Zug and −4.6% in Cham. In the cities the change is 53.2% in Schaffhausen, 46.7% in Bern and 47.8% in St. Gallen.

Reading the figures with care

Electricity price excl. VAT, typical household H4 (4,500 kWh/year) is the indicator used throughout: it describes one household profile and uses the tariffs for 2027. A household that consumes much less or much more faces a different price per kilowatt-hour: the median is 29.82 Rp./kWh for the small profile, 26.85 Rp./kWh for the typical one and 22.95 Rp./kWh for the large one.

Prices come from the operators that supply each municipality, and one operator can serve several places, which is why neighbouring municipalities often share a tariff. A municipality without a price in the data is simply missing from these comparisons.

Taken together, the table says that where a household lives matters, but not in the way city size or distance would suggest. The spread between Kestenholz and Sils im Domleschg is wide, the spread between the big cities is much narrower, and the mix of energy, grid and levies in each local tariff is where the differences show up.