Residential (up to 15 kVA) · if you have bought none yet this month
How many units K100 buys at the current ZESCO tariff, why the second hundred costs three times the first, what those units will run, and a check on whether you were charged the right rate.
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From Town Tools. For the current version, visit https://www.towntools.org/lusaka-lusaka-province-zm/what-your-money-buys
You hand over K100 at the vendor and find out how many units you got afterwards. This page tells you first.
The rates are the Energy Regulation Board's own, approved on 31 October 2025 and in force since 1 November. They are stepped: the first hundred units of the month are the cheapest electricity in Zambia, and the hundred after that costs nearly three times as much. Put in what you want to spend, and it works out the units, what those units will run, and — at the bottom — whether a purchase you already made came out at the right price.
How to tell: If the meter is in a house and the connection is an ordinary domestic one, this is it. ZESCO can confirm the tariff on your meter number: 0211 363636 or contactcentre@zesco.co.zm.
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.
148.7 units
You get
at K0.67 per unit
K100.00
That costs
K0.67
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
First 100 units — at K0.42
K41.82
100
Units 101–200 — at K1.19
K58.18
48.7
Total
K100.00
148.7
Every rate on this page includes the 3% government excise duty and 16% VAT, because that is what you actually hand over. The ERB and ZESCO both publish their tariffs BEFORE tax — the ERB's approved first-step rate is K0.35 and ZESCO's own table says “exclusive of taxes” — so the headline figures you see elsewhere are about 19% below what a token costs. Both numbers are shown here.
The steps are counted on what the meter uses in a MONTH, not on each purchase. The ERB sets them that way and ZESCO's own bill table works that way — 100 units come to K35 before tax and 200 units to K135, which is the first hundred at K0.35 plus the second at K1.00. So a second token in the same month buys fewer units than the first, and the cheap steps come back at the start of the next month.
No fixed monthly charge on this tariff
On Residential (up to 15 kVA) you pay only for the electricity you buy. Nothing is owed in a month you buy nothing.
What that runs
148.7 units is roughly:
Appliance
How much
units per use
Phone charge
14,869.6 full charges
0.01
Four LED lightsAll four on at once
3,717.4 hours
0.04
TV
1,487 hours
0.1
KettleA full 2 kW kettle from cold
1,351.8 boils
0.11
Borehole pumpA 1 hp submersible pump. Lusaka has more than 3,000 private boreholes and the pump is often the largest single thing on the meter.
198.3 hours
0.75
FridgeAn ordinary fridge-freezer, running all day
148.7 days
1
Iron
148.7 hours
1
One stove plateOn high — the number to hold against what a bag of charcoal costs
99.1 hours
1.5
Electric geyserThe element only runs while it is heating, not all day
49.6 hours of heating
3
These are typical ratings, not measurements of your house. An older appliance, a bigger one, or a cold week will move them. Use them to compare one thing against another — a geyser against a kettle — rather than to predict a month exactly.
Check what you were charged
Take your last slip. Put in what you paid and the units you got, and this divides one by the other and holds it against the published rate. It is a check on your own purchase, so it stays right even if our figures fall behind ZESCO's — and it is the only way to find out how the steps actually behave on your meter.
Why a purchase can come out different
You may have already used the cheap steps this month. The first 100 units are priced at K0.35 before tax and the next 100 at K1.00; a second token in the same month starts further up the ladder and buys fewer units for the same money. That is the most common reason a rate looks wrong.
The meter may be on the commercial tariff rather than the residential one. The meter decides, not the building, and a shop that became a house keeps whatever it was connected as.
A vendor can add a charge of its own on top of the electricity. Your slip should show what actually went to ZESCO.
If there is a payment arrangement on the account, part of a purchase can go to arrears instead of units. Worth asking whether one is in place.
The rates changed on 1 November 2025. A slip from before that date was priced at the emergency tariff and will not match.
If it keeps coming out different
Keep the slip — it carries the meter number, the amount and the units, which is everything needed to trace a purchase. ZESCO's contact centre is 0211 363636 and contactcentre@zesco.co.zm. If ZESCO's own process is exhausted and you are still not satisfied, the Energy Regulation Board is the regulator and takes complaints about electricity accounts.
The rates on this page
In force from 1 November 2025. They hold until 31 October 2026. The ERB approved these on 31 October 2025 to run to 31 October 2026, and said ZESCO must submit a true-up report for review before any later adjustment. As of 18 October 2026 the ERB had published no decision on rates from 1 November 2026 — no true-up review, no approval and no deferral — so these remain the latest approved rates. If the Board publishes new ones, this page will be updated to them.
Which tariff are you on?
Price of one unit
Before tax
Standing charges
Residential (up to 15 kVA)
K1.19
K1.00
—
Commercial (up to 15 kVA)
K1.61
K1.35
—
The steps in the tariff
Units in the month
Price per unit
Before tax
First 100 unitsThe lifeline step. The ERB held this rate unchanged in October 2025 specifically to protect low-use households.
K0.42
K0.35
Units 101–200Also held unchanged. Together with the first step, this is what a low-use household pays for.
K1.19
K1.00
Units 201–400The step where the price stops being gentle. It came down from K2.46 in the October 2025 decision.
K2.89
K2.42
Every unit above 400Cut hard in October 2025, from K4.80 to K3.45 before tax.
K4.12
K3.45
Worth knowing
The first 100 units are the cheapest electricity in Zambia, and that is deliberate
In October 2025 ZESCO asked the Energy Regulation Board to split residential customers into a lifeline tariff and a standard one for everybody else. The ERB refused, and instead went back to four steps for all residential customers, holding the first two rates exactly where the emergency tariff had put them — K0.35 and K1.00 before tax — while cutting the top step from K4.80 to K3.45. Its own decision says this was to safeguard lifeline customers.
The practical effect: 100 units cost about K42 including tax. The next 100 cost about K119. The hundred after that cost about K289 — nearly seven times the first hundred. Where you sit on that ladder matters more than anything else on this page.
One thing we could not find out, and how you can settle it
The steps are defined on a month's consumption. What nobody publishes — not ZESCO, not the ERB, not the customer portal — is exactly how a PREPAID meter counts that month: whether the ladder runs across every token you buy between the 1st and the 31st, or restarts somewhere else. We looked, and we would rather say so than guess.
This page assumes the calendar month, because that is what the published tariff says. If you buy twice in a month and the second token gives you noticeably fewer units per kwacha, that confirms it. If it gives you the same, it does not. Either way the rate check below will show you, and the correction link at the foot of this page reaches us — this is exactly the kind of thing residents know and documents do not.
A higher set of rates is already published. They are not what you pay today
ZESCO's own tariff page carries a third column headed “Pre-approved 2026/2027” — K0.54, K1.28, K2.83 and K4.04 before tax — and describes the October 2025 decision as a multi-year framework running to 31 October 2027. But the ERB's own decision says the approved rates run to 31 October 2026 and that ZESCO must file a true-up report for the Board's review before anything changes, and no such review had been published by 18 October 2026. The higher column also contradicts the ERB's stated aim of holding the cost of the first 200 units. If you see those numbers quoted, that is which column they came from; they are not approved.
It is arithmetic on published rates. It is not your account, it cannot see your meter, and it has no view on load shedding — for that, see “Is Load Shedding On?” on this town's page. If a figure here and a figure from ZESCO disagree, ZESCO's is the one that governs what you owe. But a difference you can name and show is a much better starting point than a feeling that something is wrong.