Electricity Bill Terms Explained: Every Line on a Pakistani Bill (2026)

Updated: August 2026

An electricity bill in Pakistan has three kinds of lines: identity numbers (reference number, customer ID), consumption lines (units consumed, sanctioned load) and money lines (energy charges, fixed charges, FPA, QTR adjustment, FC surcharge, GST and income tax). This glossary explains every electricity bill term, defining each abbreviation on a 2026 WAPDA-DISCO or K-Electric bill with its current rate.

Most people can read the total but not the twenty small lines that build it. That is by design: the labels are cramped, half of them are three-letter codes (FPA, QTR, ED, LPS), and no one hands you a key. Below is the key. Each term is defined as a standalone sentence so you can jump straight to the line that is bothering you.

Key takeaways

• Units consumed is the kilowatt-hours (kWh) you used this cycle: your present meter reading minus the previous reading. One unit equals one kWh.
• The four money lines nobody escapes are energy charges (units × slab rate), fixed charges (Rs 275–675 per kW of sanctioned load), the FC surcharge (Rs 3.23/unit) and 18% GST.
• FPA is the monthly fuel true-up; QTR is the quarterly true-up, currently a −Rs 1.9857 per unit credit on June–August 2026 bills.
• Income tax (Section 235) hits a domestic bill only when it exceeds Rs 25,000 and the account holder is not a filer (7.5%); the PTV TV fee was abolished in July 2025 and should read Rs 0.
• LPS (late payment surcharge) is the 10% penalty in the “payable after due date” total — the one line entirely in your control.

Every term on a Pakistani electricity bill, defined in one table

This is the master glossary. It covers every line you are likely to see on a LESCO, MEPCO, FESCO, IESCO, GEPCO, PESCO, HESCO, SEPCO, QESCO, TESCO or K-Electric bill. Rates are for the August 2026 billing cycle under SRO 279(I)/2026.

The rest of this guide groups these terms the way they sit on the page, so you can read your bill top to bottom.

What are the identity numbers on your electricity bill?

The identity block sits at the top of the bill and answers “whose account is this?” There are three numbers, and people mix them up constantly.

The reference number is the 14-digit number you type into any app, bank or portal to check or pay your bill; it usually ends in a U (urban) or R (rural) letter that some portals ask you to select separately. The customer ID (also printed as consumer number) is the shorter, typically 10-digit permanent identifier your distribution company keeps for the connection itself. The meter number is the serial stamped on your physical meter, useful when you phone the helpline, but no portal fetches a bill from it.

For anything you do on a phone or website, reach for the 14-digit reference number. K-Electric in Karachi is the exception: it prints a single 13-digit account number instead of splitting the two. The full breakdown of which number does what is in our guide to the reference number vs the customer ID.

What do the consumption lines on your bill mean?

The consumption block answers “how much did you use, and how big is your connection?” It is the honest part of the bill: the meter, not the tariff.

Units consumed is the number of kilowatt-hours (kWh) you used this billing cycle, calculated as your present reading minus your previous reading. One unit equals one kWh, so a meter reading 44,860 today against 44,300 last month means 560 units this cycle. The previous reading is the meter figure from your last bill; the present reading is this month’s figure, recorded by the meter reader on your reading date. If you want to catch a mis-keyed reading, our guide to reading your own meter shows how to check these three fields against the meter on your wall.

Three more terms describe the size of your connection rather than this month’s use:

• Sanctioned load is the maximum capacity, in kilowatts, that your DISCO has approved for your connection (a typical home is 1–5 kW). Since February 2026 your fixed charges are billed per kW of this figure, so it now affects the total directly.
• Connected load is the combined wattage of every appliance wired into the connection. It should not exceed your sanctioned load; if it does, you are meant to apply for a load extension.
• MDI (Maximum Demand Indicator) is the highest average kW your connection actually drew during the month, recorded by the meter. On domestic single-phase bills it rarely drives a charge, but on commercial and industrial connections, exceeding sanctioned load through MDI triggers penalties.

What are the money lines on your electricity bill?

The money block is where the total is built, and where nearly every confusing abbreviation lives. Each line below is defined as a standalone term; the deep dive with full arithmetic is in our taxes on your electricity bill breakdown.

Energy charges (cost of electricity)

Energy charges are your units multiplied by NEPRA’s slab rate, and this is the only line that is actually electricity. For unprotected consumers, billing is by landing slab: your whole month is charged at the rate of the slab your total lands in, so 390 units are all billed at the 301–400 rate of Rs 36.46, giving Rs 14,219.40. Rates run from Rs 3.95 per unit (lifeline) to Rs 47.20 (above 700 units). The full category-wise schedule is in our per-unit price guide, and you can confirm the current slabs on your own DISCO’s tariff page, such as IESCO’s.

Fixed charges

Fixed charges are a monthly capacity charge billed on your sanctioned load, introduced for domestic consumers by SRO 279 in February 2026. Unprotected homes pay Rs 275 to Rs 675 per kilowatt per month depending on their consumption slab (protected homes pay Rs 200 to Rs 300 per kW), and the charge applies even in a month you use nothing. A 2 kW home in the 301–400 slab, where the rate is Rs 400 per kW, pays about 2 × Rs 400 = Rs 800. Lifeline consumers are exempt and pay only a minimum charge of Rs 75 (single-phase) or Rs 150 (three-phase) instead. This per-kW structure replaced the old per-connection charge.

FPA / FCA

FPA (Fuel Price Adjustment), also labelled FCA (Fuel Cost Adjustment), is the monthly line that trues up the difference between the fuel cost assumed in your tariff and what the grid actually burned about two months earlier. It changes every month and can be negative (a credit). Because both GST and electricity duty are charged on it, an FPA line costs a little more than its face value. The full mechanism is in our guide to FPA in electricity bills.

QTR adjustment / QTA

QTR Adjustment (Quarterly Tariff Adjustment), shown as QTA in NEPRA documents, is a three-monthly true-up of everything FPA does not cover: capacity payments, transmission costs, and actual versus projected sales. It can go either way. Right now it is a credit of −Rs 1.9857 per unit on bills from June through August 2026, so on 390 units it subtracts about Rs 774. Check the sign on your line: a figure in brackets or with a minus is money back.

FC surcharge

FC Surcharge (Financing Cost Surcharge) is a flat Rs 3.23 per unit on every unit, and in 2026 it funds repayment of the roughly Rs 1,225 billion (Rs 1.225 trillion) loan the government took from 18 banks to clear power-sector circular debt. Only lifeline consumers are exempt. It looks small but at 390 units it adds Rs 1,259.70 before GST, and it is scheduled to stay on bills until 2031.

Electricity duty (ED)

Electricity Duty (ED) is a provincial levy charged on your variable charges, typically around 1% to 1.5% for domestic connections (higher for commercial and industrial). Because it is calculated on energy cost plus surcharges, it rises with FPA, and it is itself part of the GST base — so you pay sales tax on the duty.

GST (sales tax)

GST (General Sales Tax) is federal sales tax at 18%, and it is the single biggest tax on the bill. The catch is the base: GST is charged on your energy cost plus fixed charges, the FC surcharge, electricity duty and (on a separate line) FPA, not on energy alone. That is why the GST figure is always more than 18% of your units × rate.

Income tax (Section 235)

Income Tax, printed as I.Tax, is advance income tax collected under Section 235 of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001, with your DISCO acting as FBR’s withholding agent. On a domestic bill it is zero unless the bill exceeds Rs 25,000 and the account holder is not on FBR’s Active Taxpayers List, in which case it is 7.5% of the whole bill. Commercial and industrial connections pay it on a slab basis regardless of bill size. File your return and appear on the ATL and the domestic line disappears.

TV fee, meter rent and arrears

Three smaller lines round out the money block. TV Fee was the PTV licence fee (Rs 35 domestic, Rs 60 commercial); it was abolished from 1 July 2025 and should now read Rs 0 — if a 2026 bill still charges it, that is a billing fault. Meter rent is a small equipment charge of Rs 0–30 that many bills no longer carry. Arrears is any unpaid amount carried forward from earlier bills, added straight onto the current total; a growing arrears line is the usual reason a bill balloons even in a low-usage month.

What do protected, unprotected and lifeline mean on your bill?

These three words describe your consumer category, and the category decides which slab rates you pay, the single biggest fork in the whole bill.

A protected consumer has stayed at or under 200 units in every one of the last six months, and is rewarded with lower rates (Rs 10.54 for the first 100 units, Rs 13.01 for 101–200) billed slab by slab. An unprotected consumer has broken that 200-unit rule and pays higher rates on a landing-slab basis. The gap is brutal: a protected home using 180 units pays roughly (100 × 10.54) + (80 × 13.01) = Rs 2,094.80 for energy, while an unprotected home at the same 180 units pays 180 × 28.91 = Rs 5,203.80. A lifeline consumer stays at or under 100 units for a full 12 months and pays the lowest rates of all (Rs 3.95 up to 50 units, Rs 7.74 for 51–100), exempt from fixed charges, the FC surcharge and QTR adjustment. Our guide to protected vs unprotected consumers explains exactly how the status is won and lost.

What are peak and off-peak (TOU) on your bill?

Peak and off-peak are the two rates on a Time-of-Use (TOU) tariff, which bills the same unit at a different price depending on the hour you used it. TOU applies to larger connections: commercial, industrial, and domestic consumers above about 5 kW sanctioned load with a TOU meter. Peak is the evening window when grid demand is highest, charged at Rs 46.85 per unit; off-peak is the rest of the day, charged at Rs 34.53 per unit. On a TOU bill your consumption splits into two rows, and the meter keeps separate registers (often T1 for peak, T2 for off-peak). Shifting heavy load out of the peak window is one of the easiest savings; our guide to peak hours in Pakistan lists the exact timings by DISCO and season.

What do the dates and totals at the bottom of the bill mean?

The final block answers “when and how much do you pay?” Four terms matter.

The issue date (or bill date) is when the bill was generated, and the due date is the last day to pay at the lower amount, usually 15 to 21 days later. The bill prints two totals: payable within due date is the amount if you pay on time, and payable after due date is the higher amount that includes the LPS (Late Payment Surcharge) — a 10% penalty on the current bill that no bank or office can waive. Pay one day late and you owe the higher figure; leave the bill unpaid and it becomes arrears on the next cycle, with disconnection possible after two unpaid months. What paying late actually costs, and how to handle a missed due date, is covered in our guide to paying after the due date.

One more timing term: bimonthly billing. Most connections are billed monthly, but some agricultural and low-use rural connections are billed every two months, so a bimonthly bill covers two cycles of units at once and can look alarmingly high without anything being wrong.

Who are the entities named on your electricity bill?

Several organisations are named or implied on your bill, and knowing who does what helps you send a complaint to the right place. Here is the domain graph in plain terms.

So the chain behind one bill runs: NEPRA approves the tariff, the Power Division notifies it, CPPA-G feeds in the fuel cost, PITC prints the bill, and your DISCO (or K-Electric) delivers it and takes the payment. When a figure looks wrong, that tells you whether it is a tariff question (NEPRA) or a reading question (your DISCO).

Read your own bill with this glossary open

The fastest way to use this page is to pull up your latest bill and match each row to the definitions above. If your total looks higher than it should, the terms here tell you where to look first: a jump in units consumed is a usage or meter question, while a jump with steady units is almost always the FPA, QTR, FC surcharge or a slab change, the money lines, not the meter. Our guide on why bills run high walks through that split, and you can sanity-check any amount against your units with the electricity bill calculator. Not sure which company even serves you? Start at the all-DISCOs hub.

FAQs

What does FPA mean on my electricity bill?

FPA stands for Fuel Price Adjustment, the monthly line that trues up the gap between the fuel cost assumed in your tariff and what the grid actually burned about two months earlier. It changes every month and can be a charge or a credit. Because GST and electricity duty are both applied to the FPA amount, a positive FPA costs slightly more than its face value on the final total.

What is the QTR adjustment on my bill?

QTR Adjustment (Quarterly Tariff Adjustment, shown as QTA in NEPRA documents) is a three-monthly true-up of costs that FPA does not cover, such as capacity payments and transmission charges. It can be positive or negative. On bills from June through August 2026 it is a credit of Rs 1.9857 per unit, so on 390 units it subtracts about Rs 774. A minus sign or brackets on the QTR line means money back.

What does ED mean in an electricity bill?

ED stands for Electricity Duty, a provincial tax charged on your variable charges (energy cost plus surcharges). For domestic consumers it is usually around 1% to 1.5%, higher for commercial and industrial connections. Because ED is calculated on charges that include FPA, it rises when fuel adjustment rises, and it is itself included in the base on which 18% GST is charged.

Is GST really charged on top of the other taxes on my bill?

Yes. GST on an electricity bill is 18%, but it is charged on your energy cost plus the fixed charges, the FC surcharge, the QTR adjustment and electricity duty — not on your units alone. FPA gets its own separate GST line at the same 18%. This layering is why the GST figure on your bill is always larger than 18% of units × rate.

What is the FC surcharge and why is it on every bill?

The FC Surcharge (Financing Cost Surcharge) is a flat Rs 3.23 per unit charged on every unit to repay the roughly Rs 1,225 billion loan the government took from 18 banks to clear power-sector circular debt. Only lifeline consumers are exempt. It is small per unit but adds up: on 390 units it is Rs 1,259.70 before GST, and it is scheduled to remain on bills until 2031.

What does LPS mean on an electricity bill?

LPS stands for Late Payment Surcharge, a 10% penalty added when you pay after the due date. Your bill prints two totals — “payable within due date” (the lower figure) and “payable after due date” (which includes the LPS). No bank, wallet or office can waive it, so paying on or before the due date is the one line on the bill fully within your control.

Why does my bill still show a TV fee in 2026?

It should not. The PTV licence fee (Rs 35 for domestic, Rs 60 for commercial connections) was abolished by the Power Division from 1 July 2025, and every DISCO was directed to remove it. If a current 2026 bill still prints a TV fee, that is a billing error with no legal basis; report it to your DISCO’s customer service centre or helpline to have it removed and refunded.

What is the difference between sanctioned load and connected load?

Sanctioned load is the maximum kilowatt capacity your DISCO has approved for your connection, and since February 2026 your fixed charges are billed per kW of it. Connected load is the total wattage of all the appliances wired into your home. Your connected load should stay within your sanctioned load; if you regularly draw more, you are meant to apply for a load extension to avoid penalties.

What are arrears on my electricity bill?

Arrears is any unpaid amount carried forward from a previous bill, added directly onto your current total. It appears as a separate line and is the most common reason a bill jumps even when your units are normal. If you see unexplained arrears, check whether a past payment failed to post, then take the receipt to your DISCO, because arrears keep compounding with late-payment surcharges until cleared.