How many units a Yaka token buys at ERA's published national tariff, what those units actually run, and a check on whether your last purchase came out at the right rate.
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From Town Tools. For the current version, visit https://www.towntools.org/jinja-eastern-region-ug/what-your-yaka-buys
You buy a Yaka token and you find out how many units it bought only after you have paid. This page tells you first.
Power is the loudest thing on Jinja’s record. The Iganga–Jinja industrial line logged 406 interruptions in 2025, among the worst in the country, and UEDCL nationally recorded about 4,486 hours of outage between May 2025 and March 2026, with roughly 40% of its network past its design life. When the power goes here the water often follows, because the Masese pumps run off the same grid — which is why this town has both an Is the power out? board and an Are the taps dry? board.
None of that changes what a unit costs. The tariff is national, ERA sets it quarterly, and it is identical in Jinja and Kampala. But it does mean a Jinja household pays the same fixed monthly service charge whether the line held up that month or not, and that is worth seeing stated rather than discovered.
The rates below are ERA’s, for 1 October to 31 December 2026. ERA re-approved them on 1 October and left every domestic rate exactly where it was the previous quarter, so a unit costs what it cost in September. Pick the step your meter is on, put in what you want to spend, and this works out the units, what they will run, and whether a token you already bought came out at the right price.
How to tell: Take what your meter has used over the last six months and divide by six. If that rolling average is 100 units a month or less, ERA’s schedule puts your first 15 units each month on the lifeline price. It is not automatic for every household — the test is the six-month average, not the size of the house — and UEDCL can tell you what yours is on 0800 203 088.
What your money buys
The steps below are counted over the whole month, not per purchase. Put in what you have already bought since the month started so the answer starts from the right step. Leave it at 0 if this is your first purchase.
27.6 units
You get
at Shs 724.01 per unit
Shs 20,000.00
That costs
Shs 724.01
What you actually pay per unit
Everything taken off this purchase, divided by the units it bought.
Where the money goes
Line by line, from what you hand over to what reaches the meter:
Line
Amount
units
Service charge (Shs 3,360 plus VAT)
Shs 3,964.80
—
First 15 units (lifeline) — at Shs 295.00
Shs 4,425.00
15
Units 16–80 — at Shs 919.69
Shs 11,610.20
12.6
Total
Shs 20,000.00
27.6
Every figure on this page includes VAT at 18%, because that is what actually comes off your money at the vendor. ERA publishes the rates without VAT — Shs 779.4 a unit rather than Shs 919.69 — so a rate read straight off the schedule will look lower than the one you pay. VAT is charged on the service charge too, which is why Shs 3,360 arrives as Shs 3,964.80.
The steps are counted over the whole month, across every token you buy — not per purchase. Buy 40 units on the 3rd and 40 more on the 15th and the second lot starts at unit 41, not back at unit 1. The count resets at the start of the next month.
This tariff charges you before you use anything
Domestic, with the lifeline step (code 10.1) carries Shs 3,964.80 a month in standing charges. That is owed whether you use electricity or not, and it is on top of every unit you buy.
A fixed charge for the connection itself, owed once every 30 days whether you buy electricity or not. On a prepaid meter UEDCL takes the whole of it off your first purchase in that period rather than spreading it, so the first token of the month always returns fewer units than the ones after it. Buy nothing in a month and the charge waits for your next payment.
What a month costs on this tariff
Charge
Per month
Service charge (Shs 3,360 plus VAT)
Shs 3,964.80
Electricity (27.6 units)
Shs 16,035.20
Total
Shs 20,000.00
Change the amount above to see how the total moves. The standing charge does not move with it.
What that runs
27.6 units is roughly:
Appliance
How much
units per use
FridgeAn ordinary fridge-freezer left running all day and night.
27.6 days
1
Four LED bulbsAll four on at once, about 7 W each.
920.8 hours
0.03
Phone chargeFlat to full on an ordinary smartphone.
2,762.4 full charges
0.01
TVA small flat-screen, around 80 W.
345.3 hours
0.08
FanA standing or ceiling fan at about 60 W.
460.4 hours
0.06
KettleA full 2 kW kettle from cold.
251.1 boils
0.11
IronA 1 kW iron. It cycles on and off, so an hour of ironing is about a unit.
27.6 hours
1
Hot plateOne 1.5 kW plate for about 35 minutes — posho, beans on the boil, a pot of matoke.
30.7 meals
0.9
These are typical ratings, not measurements of your house. An older fridge, a bigger iron or a hotter week will move them, and the plate rating on your own appliance is the one that counts. Use them to compare — an hour of the iron against a night of the fridge — rather than to predict a month exactly.
Check what you were charged
Take your last purchase slip. Put in what you paid and the units you got; this divides one by the other and holds the answer against the published rate. It reads your own purchase, so it stays right even if our figures fall behind ERA’s.
It tells you the size of a difference. It does not tell you the cause — the ordinary causes are listed below, and most differences turn out to be one of them.
Why a purchase can come out different
The vendor or agent took a fee of their own on top. On one published November 2025 receipt, Shs 1,200 of a Shs 12,000 payment was the agent’s charge and only Shs 10,200 reached the meter. That fee is not part of the tariff and it varies by vendor.
It was your first purchase of the month, so the whole Shs 3,964.80 service charge came off before a single unit was bought. On a small token that alone can double the apparent price per unit.
The meter is on the standard step rather than the lifeline one. The lifeline price on the first 15 units only applies where the rolling six-month average is 100 units a month or less.
There is a debt on the meter, so 30% of the purchase went to arrears instead of units.
Units you had already bought earlier the same month had used up the cheaper steps. A token bought on the 25th can be priced entirely at the top rate when one bought on the 2nd was not.
Rounding. Meters and vendors round the units they print, and a fraction of a unit carries over between purchases — on a small token that can move the price per unit by a percent or two on its own.
If it keeps coming out different
Keep the slip. It carries the meter number, the amount and the units, which is everything UEDCL needs to trace a purchase. UEDCL is on 0800 203 088 toll-free, on its office line +256 312 330 300, or on WhatsApp at 0772 285 285 — the three contacts its own site published when this page was last checked, on 5 October 2026. If UEDCL's own process does not settle it, ERA — the regulator that approves these rates — takes complaints at https://www.era.go.ug/submit-a-complaint/, on info@era.go.ug, on +256 393 260166, or on WhatsApp at +256 793 199 199.
The rates on this page
In force from 1 October 2026. They hold until 31 December 2026. ERA approves end-user tariffs quarterly, so these hold for October, November and December 2026 and are re-set on 1 January. ERA left every domestic rate unchanged from the previous quarter when it approved this schedule on 1 October 2026.
Which tariff are you on?
Price of one unit
Before tax
Standing charges
Domestic, with the lifeline step (code 10.1)
Shs 919.69
Shs 779.40
Shs 3,964.80
Domestic, standard (code 10.1)
Shs 919.69
Shs 779.40
Shs 3,964.80
The steps in the tariff
Units in the month
Price per unit
Before tax
First 15 units (lifeline)Only for households that pass the six-month test below.
Shs 295.00
Shs 250.00
Units 16–80The ordinary domestic rate.
Shs 919.69
Shs 779.40
Units 81–150 (cooking tariff)Cheaper than the step below it. Set deliberately low to put electric cooking under charcoal.
Shs 486.16
Shs 412.00
Units above 150Back to the ordinary domestic rate.
Shs 919.69
Shs 779.40
Worth knowing
Units 81 to 150 cost less than units 16 to 80
This is not a typing mistake, and it is the least-known fact on this page. ERA’s domestic schedule charges units 16–80 at Shs 919.69 all-in, then drops to Shs 486.16 for units 81–150 — the cooking tariff — before going back to Shs 919.69 above 150.
It is deliberate policy: the cheap step exists to put electric cooking below charcoal for a household that uses enough to reach it. The practical consequence is that the 70 units between 81 and 150 are the cheapest bulk electricity a domestic meter in Uganda can buy, and a household that stops at 80 units a month never gets to them.
Buying a token through agent banking or a mobile-money agent often costs a fee on top, and it comes off the money before any of it reaches the meter. On one published November 2025 receipt, Shs 12,000 was handed over, Shs 1,200 was the agent’s own charge, and only Shs 10,200 bought electricity — 17.1 units.
None of that is a tariff problem, but it does mean what a Shs 12,000 note buys depends on where you buy it. The fee is not set by UEDCL or ERA and it varies by vendor. Ask what it is before you pay, and compare.
Why a small token can come back with almost nothing
UEDCL takes the service charge — Shs 3,360 plus VAT, so Shs 3,964.80 — once every 30 days, in full, off your first purchase in that period. UEDCL puts it plainly on its own prepayment page: make several purchases inside 30 days and "he earns discounted units once, and service fee is levied once".
So a first-of-the-month token under about Shs 3,965 buys no units at all. The whole of it goes to the charge. The calculator above models this — untick the box if you have already bought this month.
A new E-Lipa meter also arrives with 10 units pre-loaded, and those 10 units are deducted in full from the first purchase you make.
Umeme’s twenty-year distribution concession ended on 31 March 2025, and UEDCL — the state-owned distributor — took over the network, the meters and the accounts. Yaka, the prepaid brand, carried over; the meters themselves did not change.
If you are calling an Umeme number or reading an Umeme rate sheet, that is why the figures do not line up. ERA still sets the tariff, and still re-sets it every quarter.
What this page is not
It is arithmetic on ERA’s published schedule. It is not your account, it cannot see your meter, and it does not know whether your household passes the lifeline test. Where a figure here and a figure from UEDCL disagree, UEDCL’s is the one that governs what you owe — but a difference you can name and show is a far better starting point than a feeling that something went wrong.
Rates and prepayment rules are reproduced here with acknowledgement to the Electricity Regulatory Authority and to the Uganda Electricity Distribution Company Limited.