Bangladesh electricity tariff history: 2020–2025

Bangladesh's electricity tariff has moved over the past five years in a way the country hadn't seen since the 1990s. Between 2020 and 2025 the residential retail rate rose by roughly 35% in nominal terms, with several large revisions in close succession during 2023–2024. Here's the timeline, the reasons behind each change, and the regulator's published rationale.

Who actually sets the rates

Two authorities set or approve the numbers. The Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC), formed under the BERC Act 2003, is the formal regulator. It runs public hearings, evaluates utility cost proposals, and issues tariff orders. The Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources (MPEMR) can set retail tariffs via an executive order route added in 2023. Several recent revisions have gone through this second route. The difference matters: BERC hearings are public and document-heavy; executive orders appear in the gazette with comparatively less prior notice.

Year by year

2020 — the pre-revision baseline

At the start of 2020 the residential entry slab was ৳3.80 per kWh and the top residential slab (above 600 units) was ৳11.62. LT-A demand charge was ৳30 per kW. COVID lockdowns suppressed industrial demand for most of the year, and utilities, busy with arrears management, held back any major rate work.

February 2020 — a modest adjustment

BERC issued a modest revision, raising the average bulk supply tariff by 8.4% and the average retail tariff by about 5.3%. The cited reasons were a rise in heavy fuel oil prices for HFO-based peaking plants and the need to rebalance the bulk-to-retail margin. Residential entry-slab customers were largely insulated from this revision.

2021–2022 — a pause and pressure builds

BERC issued no formal retail revision in 2021 or 2022. In 2022 the international LNG and coal price shocks gave utilities cause to argue for further increases, but no order came. By late 2022 utilities absorbed the gap as accounts receivable, and the PDB's outstanding balance to IPPs grew rapidly. That pressure laid the foundation for the rapid changes of 2023.

January 2023 — the executive-order revisions begin

After an amendment to the BERC Act, the government gained the power to change retail tariffs by executive order in emergencies. January and February 2023 saw three small tariff revisions, each round adding roughly 5% to the average residential rate. The cumulative impact on a typical 250-unit household was about ৳110 a month.

February 2024 — the biggest revision in five years

Early 2024 brought a large revision: about 6.5% average increase residential and 8% commercial. The 76–200 unit slab moved from ৳6.95 to ৳7.20 per kWh, and the 401–600 slab jumped to ৳12.67. LT-A demand charge settled at ৳42 per kW. The published reason was the Taka depreciation against the dollar, which had raised the Taka cost of imported fuels by more than 25% over the prior 18 months.

2025 — TOU expansion and stable retail

Through 2025 the focus shifted from headline rate hikes to expansion of time-of-use tariffs. New TOU schedules launched for LT-D3 and MT-7, introducing a super-off-peak window from 5 AM to 9 AM with a lower super-off-peak rate. Under the June 2026 schedule, LT-D3 is ৳9.09 super-off-peak versus ৳10.22 off-peak, about 11% lower; MT-7 is ৳9.05 versus ৳10.18, also about 11% lower. The change is structural: it pushes load from the evening peak to early morning, which lowers the marginal cost of generation. LT-A residential customers saw no material change in 2025, though the regulator has signalled a voluntary residential TOU pilot may launch in late 2026.

What drove the changes

Nearly every revision in this period can be explained by a few forces.

• Imported fuel cost. Bangladesh imports HFO, LNG, and increasingly coal. When international prices rise or the Taka weakens, generation cost rises too.
• IPP capacity payments. Independent power producer contracts include capacity charges that PDB pays whether demand is there or not. Several large IPPs commissioned in this window pushed up fixed costs.
• Subsidy management. The government has shifted part of the subsidy from explicit budgetary support to tariff adjustments, transferring the burden from the budget line to the consumer.

June 2026 — the latest revision

The current rates date from a BERC retail tariff order effective from the June 2026 bill month. It raised the residential per-unit rates across the upper slabs: 76–200 units from ৳7.20 to ৳8.50, 201–300 from ৳7.59 to ৳9.10, 301–400 from ৳8.02 to ৳9.62, 401–600 from ৳12.67 to ৳15.01, and above 600 from ৳14.61 to ৳17.35. A separate BERC notice dated 4 June 2026 deliberately kept the residential lifeline (0–50 units, ৳4.63) and the first step (0–75 units, ৳5.26) unchanged to protect low-volume households. The LT-A demand charge stayed at ৳42 per kW. On the non-residential side, the commercial LT-E flat rate moved from ৳13.01 to ৳15.36, and the agricultural rate from ৳5.25 to ৳6.04.

What it means for your monthly bill

A typical residential customer using 250 kWh paid about ৳1,500 in early 2020. By mid-2025 the same 250 kWh comes to about ৳2,050 — roughly 37% higher in nominal terms. Adjusted for inflation, the real increase is about 12%, but the shock is real because the headline rates came in steps, not continuously. In 2023–2024 many families experienced two consecutive “unexpected” bills.

To see how every bill of the last six months would have looked under each rate schedule, plug your unit count into the calculator and pick a prior category. The tariff schedule explorer shows the slab boundaries that were in effect on the date of each revision.

What to watch for ahead

A few signals to track. BERC has flagged a public hearing for a bulk supply margin review; this typically precedes a retail revision by three to six months. The global LNG market is volatile, and any sustained rise above $14/MMBtu would put pressure on retail again. Net metering adoption on rooftop solar is rising, and the regulator may reconsider feed-in pricing — which wouldn't change the retail rate, but would change the economics of new solar installs.

The five years from 2020 to 2025 have made one thing clear: tariffs in Bangladesh are no longer a “set it and forget it” system. Read your bill, know which schedule you're on, and return to the calculator at each revision. That way you can plan instead of just react.