How Much Does It Cost to Connect Electricity to a New House? (2026)

Quick answer

Connecting electricity to a new house costs about $955 to $8,000 in utility charges when the distribution line already runs past the property, based on four utility tariffs effective in 2025 and 2026. A standard lot next to an existing transformer is the cheap end: Connexus Energy charges $940 plus a $15 processing fee. A long underground run with a new pad transformer is the expensive end: Avista's Idaho Schedule 51 prices a padmount transformer at $9,134 and underground service at $10.78 per foot, against a $2,755 residential allowance. Everything on your side of the meter, meaning the meter base, the panel, the permit and the inside wiring, is extra and usually runs $1,800 to $6,000 for the meter base and a 200 amp panel.

Size the service your new house needs →

Three tools cover this job: the electrical load calculator to settle 100 A against 200 A, the panel upgrade cost calculator for the equipment on your side of the meter, and the electrician rate calculator for the labor hours your contractor will bill.

New house electricity connection cost table (checked October 2026)

Every row names its source and its effective date. The tariff rows are what that utility actually publishes and apply only in that utility's territory. The two contractor rows are typical ranges from named cost guides, not national averages, and they are labelled that way on purpose.

Your own utility publishes an equivalent document, usually filed as a "line extension", "schedule of charges", "rules and regulations" or "new construction" page. Ask for it by name before you accept a verbal estimate, because the written schedule is what you will actually be billed from.

What a new house connection costs on four real tariffs (animated)

Six scenarios built from four published tariffs. Every bar is utility charges only: your panel, meter base, permit, inspection and inside wiring sit on top of all of them. The spread from $955 to $7,996 is almost entirely about two things, whether a transformer has to be set for you and whether the run goes underground.

How much does it cost to connect electricity to a house?

The honest answer is that there are two very different questions hiding inside that one, and the price gap between them is roughly ten to one. If a transformer already serves your street and your house sits on a normal lot, you are buying a service connection, and that is a few hundred to a couple of thousand dollars. If the nearest power is a quarter mile away down a dirt track, you are buying a line extension, and that is priced per foot with no ceiling.

Utilities bill a new residential connection from four or five separate lines, and knowing which is which is how you read a quote:

• An application, design or processing fee. Green Mountain Power charges $400 for a single phase application and credits it back if the job gets built. Connexus charges $15 to process and $90 per hour for engineering. Avista charges a $150 design fee and then deducts it from your contribution if you paid it.
• The distribution line extension, priced per foot, if the line has to come to you. Green Mountain Power charges $6.57 per foot for 1/0 overhead primary and $8.58 per foot for 15 kV underground primary.
• The transformer, either at actual cost, as a flat per-customer charge, or buried inside a standard connection fee.
• The service drop or lateral, the last stretch from the transformer to your meter. Green Mountain Power charges $712.99 for a #2 triplex overhead drop; Avista charges $5.56 per foot overhead and $10.78 per foot underground.
• Minus an allowance, which is the part most people miss. Avista gives $2,755 per single dwelling. PG&E gives $3,255 per meter. NYSEG gives footage instead of dollars: 500 feet of overhead distribution line and 100 feet of overhead service, free.

Worked example: a standard lot with the transformer already there

This is most new houses in a developed subdivision. On the Connexus Energy schedule effective April 1 2026, a new building connect where the meter sits on the corner nearest the lot feed point and within the first 15 feet of the structure costs $940 plus the $15 service processing charge, so $955. Put the meter on a different corner and the distance fee adder is $375, taking it to $1,330. Build it in winter and the winter construction adder is another $305, so $1,635. Those are the whole utility bill for that house.

Worked example: a designed job 350 feet from the feed point

Same utility, bigger lot. A designed job from a lot feed point costs $2,135 plus $15, with cable free for the first 200 feet and $10.65 per foot after that. At 350 feet: $2,135 + $15 + (150 × $10.65) = $3,747.50. If there is no lot feed point at all, the service fee jumps to $4,120 and the same job becomes $5,732.50. That $1,985 difference is purely administrative geography, which is why it is worth asking your utility whether your parcel has a feed point before you pick where the house sits.

Worked example: 500 feet of new overhead line

On the Green Mountain Power tariff, 500 feet of 1/0 overhead primary at $6.57 is $3,285. Add the $400 application fee and a $712.99 #2 triplex service drop, subtract the $582.70 service drop credit, and you get $3,815.29, plus the transformer. Double the distance to 1,000 feet and the same arithmetic gives $7,100.29. Distance is the whole game once you are past a few hundred feet: the per foot charge swamps every fixed fee.

If your run is long, the voltage drop on your side of the meter becomes a real design problem as well as a cost problem. Work it out with the voltage drop calculator before anyone buys wire, and check the result against the wire size calculator.

How much does a residential transformer cost?

A residential transformer costs $6,500 to $7,400 for a 25 kVA single phase padmount unit as equipment, and $5,222 to $9,134 as a utility charge depending on whether it goes on a pole or on a pad. Those are two different numbers and people confuse them constantly, so here is the distinction that matters when you read a quote.

The equipment price is what the transformer itself sells for. Bear Power Solutions lists a 25 kVA single phase padmount at $6,500 to $7,400 with a 12 to 16 week lead time as of October 2026, 37.5 kVA at $7,350 to $8,300, 100 kVA at $9,800 to $10,850 and 167 kVA at $11,400 to $12,500. A typical single family house needs 25 to 50 kVA, and two or three houses often share one.

The utility charge is what you get billed, and it is rarely the equipment price. Avista's Idaho Schedule 51 charges a flat $5,222 per customer for an overhead transformer and $9,134 per customer for a padmount, which bundles the unit, the pad, the setting and the connections. Green Mountain Power instead uses a "pad transformer unit cost differential" that varies by kVA and voltage class, which is an incremental charge rather than the transformer price. Jefferson County PUD in Washington charges about $890 more for a new padmount than for a connection from an existing one, plus the transformer at purchase cost.

Equipment prices from Bear Power Solutions product listings, October 2026, all quoted with a 12 to 16 week lead time. The service column is a planning guide, not a sizing rule: your utility sizes the transformer from its own load model.

The lead time is now the real transformer problem

Price is not what delays most new builds. Supply is. New distribution transformers were quoted at 30 to 50 weeks in April 2026 against 8 to 12 weeks before 2020, and distribution transformer prices are reported up 78 to 95 percent since 2019, with grain-oriented electrical steel roughly doubling and copper up more than 50 percent since 2020. Large power transformers are worse: Wood Mackenzie's Q2 2025 survey put standard units at an average of 128 weeks, and a July 2024 Department of Energy report described 36 month lead times as commonly quoted with maximums up to 60 months.

What that means in practice: if your connection needs a new transformer rather than a tap off an existing one, ask the utility when the unit is scheduled, not just what it costs. A transformer that arrives eleven months after you pour the slab is a schedule problem no amount of budget fixes. If you want to see how much a transformer is actually being asked to carry, the transformer calculator converts kVA to amps on each side.

Overhead or underground: which costs more to connect?

Underground costs more, and the tariffs let you measure exactly how much more rather than guess. On Avista's Idaho Schedule 51, the underground premium shows up in three separate lines at once:

Avista Schedule 51 (Idaho), rate sheets issued March 6 2026, effective May 15 2026. The primary and secondary rows show why underground is not uniformly dearer: it carries lower fixed charges and higher per foot charges, so the two curves cross at a specific distance.

Worked example: the same new house, overhead against underground

One new house on the Avista Idaho schedule, needing its own transformer and 150 feet of service, with the $2,755 residential allowance applied:

• Overhead: transformer $5,222 + (150 ft × $5.56 = $834) = $6,056 basic cost. Less the $2,755 allowance, your contribution is $3,301.
• Underground: padmount transformer $9,134 + (150 ft × $10.78 = $1,617) = $10,751 basic cost. Less the allowance, your contribution is $7,996.
• The underground premium is $4,695 on this job, and $3,912 of it is the padmount transformer, not the cable.

Whether that premium is worth paying is a real question, not a rhetorical one. Underground service does not get knocked out by ice, wind or a car hitting a pole, and most people who have paid it once say they would pay it again. It is also harder and slower to repair when it does fail, and in some places you no longer get a choice: PG&E Rule 15 requires underground for new residential subdivisions, with overhead allowed only under specific exceptions such as parcels of at least three acres.

Can you dig the trench yourself and save money?

Yes, and on some tariffs it is the single biggest saving available to a homeowner. Idaho Power publishes the two prices side by side on the same sheet dated March 15 2026, which makes the arithmetic unusually clean:

Idaho Power Residential Installation Costs, single phase underground permanent service to 400 A, document dated March 15 2026. Base charge is $30 from an existing underground source, $1,012 for a 2 inch pole riser or $1,284 for a 3 inch riser from an overhead source.

Run that on a 300 foot underground service in 4/0, fed from an overhead pole with a 2 inch riser:

• You trench: $1,012 base + (300 × $5.33 = $1,599) = $2,611
• Utility trenches: $1,012 base + (300 × $15.81 = $4,743) = $5,755
• Saving: $3,144, against a typical $1,500 to $3,600 to hire a trencher yourself at $5 to $12 per foot, plus $4 to $8 per foot for conduit and wire if the utility does not supply them.

Two cautions before you rent an excavator. First, the trench has to meet code and the utility's own standard, including depth: NEC 2023 Table 300.5 requires 24 inches of cover for direct buried cable, 18 inches for PVC listed for direct burial, 6 inches for rigid or intermediate metal conduit, and 24 inches under a public street. Second, hitting an existing gas, water or telecom line is on you. Call the national locate service before the first bucketful, every time, without exception.

What size electrical service does a new house need?

NEC 230.79 sets the floor at 100 amps for a one-family dwelling, and the service rating must also be at least the calculated load. In practice almost every new house built today gets 200 amps, because the load calculation on an all-electric house with a heat pump, an induction range, a heat pump water heater and an EV charger lands well past 100 A once you run it properly.

Getting this right before the utility designs the service matters more than it used to. The transformer the utility sets, the conductors it pulls and the meter base you buy are all sized from the number you give them, and changing it later means a second job. Run your actual load through the electrical load calculator before you answer that question on the application form, and if you are unsure whether 150 A or 200 A is the right call for the square footage, how many amps a 1,500 sq ft house needs walks the calculation through line by line.

Service conductor sizes, NEC Table 310.12

Dwelling service and feeder conductors get a break the rest of the code does not: NEC 310.12 lets them be rated at not less than 83 percent of the service rating, because a house never draws its full calculated load continuously. A 200 A service therefore needs conductors good for 166 A, a 150 A service needs 124.5 A, and a 100 A service needs 83 A. Table 310.12 does that arithmetic for you:

NEC Table 310.12, Single-Phase Dwelling Services and Feeders, cross-checked against two independent reproductions on October 28 2026 with identical values. The 83 percent allowance applies only where no adjustment or correction factors are required. Notice that 4/0 aluminum appears in the 200 A row here and also in the Idaho Power underground price sheet above: that is not a coincidence, it is the standard residential underground service in most of the country.

For a full walkthrough of the 100 A case, including why the answer differs for a sub-panel, see wire size for a 100 amp service, or size any other circuit with the breaker size calculator.

What you pay for on your side of the meter

The utility stops at the meter. Everything past it is your contractor's invoice, and on a new build it is often the larger of the two numbers. The parts that belong to the connection itself, rather than to the house wiring:

• Meter base and 200 A panel: $1,800 to $6,000 installed, about $3,000 as a typical figure. A utility-mandated new meter installation on its own runs $500 to $1,200.
• Permit: $50 to $350 from the local building department, varying with amperage.
• Mast, weatherhead and grounding electrode system for an overhead service, or the riser, conduit and pull for an underground one.
• The inspection, which is the gate. The utility will not energize the meter until it has an approved municipal inspection result in hand. National Grid states this explicitly, and almost every utility works the same way.
• Electrician labor. BLS puts the median electrician wage at $30.38 per hour and $63,190 per year as of May 2025 data. Billed shop rates run well above the wage once overhead, truck, insurance and licensing are loaded on.

These are typical ranges from named cost guides, not national averages, and they move a lot by region. The electrician rate calculator is the faster way to sanity-check a quote against hours and rate, and the panel upgrade cost calculator covers the panel and meter base side specifically.

Do not forget temporary construction power

You need power on site long before the house has a panel, and it is cheap if you plan it and annoying if you do not. Idaho Power charges $79 to connect a temporary single phase service from its underground facilities and $335 from overhead. Connexus charges a $410 temporary connection charge and notes that non-recoverable transformer and line extension costs may be added on top. Both utilities also bill a return trip if the crew arrives and the site is not ready: Idaho Power charges $79 to $131 per extra trip and Connexus charges $410 for a crew drive-off. Have the temp pole set, inspected and ready before you book the connection date.

How long does it take to get electricity connected to a new house?

Budget two to three months from application to energized meter for a straightforward connection, and longer if a transformer has to be ordered. National Grid publishes its Upstate New York process in steps, which is the clearest public timeline I found:

• Gathering details: 5 to 7 business days after you submit the service request. You need a valid 911 address first.
• Design: 17 to 19 business days. Easements and permits can be needed at this stage.
• Pre-scheduling: varies. Service agreement signed, permits obtained, easements secured, payment made in full.
• Scheduling: 4 to 6 weeks after the pre-construction requirements are met.
• Construction: varies with how far the distribution extension has to reach.

Added up, that is roughly 8.5 to 11 weeks before construction even starts, and the clock only runs while you are not the bottleneck. The things that most often blow this out are easements that need a neighbor's signature, a municipal inspection that fails on the first visit, and a transformer that is not in stock. Apply early, and apply before you need the date rather than when you need it.

What does a new electricity connection cost outside the US?

The structure is the same everywhere (an application, a quoted job, a connection charge), but who absorbs which cost varies a lot.

United Kingdom. Electricity North West quotes a single new domestic connection from £1,300 with an average of £1,790 including VAT, and two to four domestic connections from £2,600 with an average of £5,370. Its published timeline is about four days for a quote and about four weeks to complete once the site is ready, rising to ten days and six weeks for the larger job. Labour and excavation in the public highway, backfill, reinstatement, jointing, cable materials and traffic management permits are inside the quote. Excavation on your own land up to the property boundary is not, and you buy and install the ducting and meter housing yourself, though the network operator can supply them at trade cost.

India. MSEDCL in Maharashtra publishes flat service connection charges rather than quoting each job. Under the Schedule of Charges effective April 1 2023 (MERC Case 226 of 2022), a new LT single phase residential connection above 0.5 kW and up to 7.5 kW costs 1,840 rupees overhead or 8,230 rupees underground, and up to 0.5 kW it is 1,410 or 3,680 rupees. GST is charged on top. The three phase equivalent up to 20 kW is 7,790 rupees overhead or 14,940 underground, which is covered in more detail in the cost to get three phase power.

If you are comparing countries, the thing to check is not the headline fee but whether your network operator uses a dollar allowance, a free footage allowance, or a flat schedule. Those three systems produce wildly different bills for the same house on the same lot.

Five things that make a new connection cost more than it should

1. Putting the meter on the wrong corner. Connexus charges a $375 distance fee adder simply for a meter that is not on the corner nearest the lot feed point, and $245 for an additional cable run. Ask where the feed point is before the foundation is laid.
2. Building in winter. Connexus adds $305 to a new building connect in winter, and $620 to $995 plus $5.75 per foot on designed jobs. Frozen ground is expensive to trench in everywhere, not just in Minnesota.
3. Not asking about the allowance. Avista's $2,755, PG&E's $3,255 and NYSEG's 500 free feet are all applied against your bill, but only if you qualify. Avista's needs at least 2,500 kWh a year of new load. PG&E removed the allowance entirely for mixed-fuel new construction from January 1 2025, so a gas-plus-electric new build in that territory now pays the final actual cost.
4. Letting the utility trench. On the Idaho Power sheet that decision costs $10.48 per foot, which is $3,144 on a 300 foot run. Hiring it done yourself is typically $5 to $12 per foot.
5. Undersizing the service to save a few hundred dollars. A 100 A service on an all-electric house with an EV charger is a second job in three years, and the second job costs more than the difference would have. Settle the number with a real load calculation.

The one cost you genuinely cannot control is the transformer lead time. Everything on that list is a decision someone makes, usually before anyone thinks to price it.

Related calculators

Related reading: cost to run a 240V line, how many amps a 1,500 sq ft house needs, cost to get three phase power, and wire size for a 100 amp service.

Frequently asked questions

Written by Munir Afridi. Reviewed against NEC 2023 Article 230 (230.79 minimum one-family dwelling service), Article 310 (310.12 and Table 310.12) and Table 300.5 minimum cover requirements, and against the five utility tariffs and schedules named below, on October 28 2026.

Safety and code note. This article references NEC 2023. Many jurisdictions operate under earlier editions or local amendments, and the 2026 edition is being adopted state by state through 2026 and 2027, with some section numbers changing (Table 300.5 becomes 300.7(A), and the 230.85 requirement is deleted). Verify with your local authority having jurisdiction. A new service is permitted, inspected and utility-coordinated work: the utility will not energize the meter without an approved municipal inspection, and connecting a service yourself is illegal in most places and lethal in all of them. Before any excavation, call your national utility locate service. Electrical work carries safety and legal risk. Verify any calculations with a licensed electrician familiar with your local code before performing work.

Data sources: Connexus Energy Electric Rate Book Section IV Schedule of Charges, Revision 39 dated December 18 2025, effective April 1 2026 (single phase new building connect, designed jobs, cable fees, boring, winter adders, temporary service, drive-off charge). Avista Utilities Schedule 51 (Idaho), cover sheet issued May 27 2025 effective June 1 2025, rate sheets issued March 6 2026 effective May 15 2026 (residential allowances, per customer and per foot charges, overhead and padmount transformer charges, design fee). Idaho Power "Residential Installation Costs, Idaho Cost Information", document dated March 15 2026 (base charges, pole risers, customer-trench and utility-trench per foot rates, temporary service, return trips). Green Mountain Power "Electric Line Extensions, Relocations and Upgrades" tariff, effective with bills rendered on or after June 15 2025 (per foot primary and secondary charges, service drop fees and credit, application fees, excavator and pad transformer charges). Pacific Gas and Electric Electric Rule 15, Sheet 9, Revised Cal. P.U.C. Sheet No. 57207-E, effective February 28 2024 (residential allowance, mixed-fuel exception, trenching responsibility, underground requirement for new subdivisions). NYSEG line extensions page under PSC No. 119, checked October 28 2026 (500 foot and 100 foot free allowances, 10 year payment plan above $1,000). National Grid Upstate New York new electric service page, checked October 28 2026 (step by step timeline, inspection requirement). Electricity North West "How much will my new supply cost", checked October 28 2026 (UK connection costs and timelines). MSEDCL circular revising the Schedule of Charges with effect from April 1 2023, under MERC Case No. 226 of 2022 (India single and three phase connection charges). US Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, Electricians, May 2025 median wage data, page modified August 27 2026. Bear Power Solutions single phase padmount transformer product listings, October 2026 (equipment prices and lead times). IndustrialSage, "Power Transformer Lead Times Reach 128 Weeks", published May 6 2026 and modified October 16 2026, citing Wood Mackenzie's Q2 2025 survey and a July 2024 Department of Energy report. Miami Transformers, "Why New Distribution Transformer Lead Times Hit 50 Weeks", April 20 2026 (30 to 50 week distribution lead times; a vendor article with no named external source, used only for that range). NEC Table 310.12 values cross-checked against two independent reproductions (Mike Holt Enterprises dwelling unit calculations PDF and conduit.site), identical in both, on October 28 2026. NEC Table 300.5 cover depths cross-checked against two independent references on October 28 2026. Utility Cost Guide "Cost to Run Power to Property", reviewed October 2 2026, and HomeGuide "Cost to Bury Power Lines", checked October 28 2026 (contractor typical ranges for trenching, conduit, meter base, panel and permits, which are ranges rather than averages). Tariff prices apply only in the quoting utility's territory, and every figure above carries the date it was checked.