Texas renters have legally protected rights over their electricity service, and a landlord who violates those rules can be reported to the Public Utility Commission of Texas. Those rights depend on one key variable: how your unit is metered. Understanding that one fact tells you whether you can shop for your own Retail Electric Provider, whether your landlord can charge you a markup, and what disclosures you are entitled to before you sign a lease.

The First Question: How Is Your Unit Metered?

Every apartment or rental home in a deregulated Texas service area falls into one of four billing arrangements: the three below, plus allocated billing, where the property is master metered and the landlord divides the bill among units under PUCT Rule 25.141.

Master-metered, all bills paid. The entire property has one utility meter. The landlord pays the electricity bill and bundles that cost into rent. You have no direct relationship with a provider, and you cannot shop for a better rate. This arrangement is legal, and it is common in older multifamily buildings.

Individually metered. Your unit has its own meter registered directly with the local utility. In this case, the account is in your name, and you have the full right to choose any Retail Electric Provider serving your area. Where the account is in your name, the landlord is not a party to it and does not pick your provider. Some landlords instead keep the account in their own name at individually metered units and bill tenants for their usage; PUCT enforcement staff has challenged that arrangement as an unauthorized resale of electricity, so read any lease clause that sets it up closely before you sign.

Submetered. The property has a master meter with the utility, but the landlord has installed private submeters that measure each unit's consumption. The landlord pays the utility, then bills each tenant for their individual usage. This is a regulated activity in Texas under PUCT rules.

Your Rights in an All Bills Paid Unit

If your rent includes electricity, you are paying an estimate of usage embedded in your rent. You cannot shop providers, and you have no visibility into the actual cost per kilowatt-hour. That is the tradeoff for simplicity.

What a landlord cannot do is advertise a unit as all bills paid and then bill you separately for electricity later without amending your lease. The lease terms govern. If the lease says all bills paid, that promise is enforceable.

One practical note: all bills paid units give tenants no incentive to conserve energy, and landlords sometimes respond by setting thermostats or using programmable HVAC controls. Whether a landlord can restrict thermostat access depends on local ordinances and lease language. The PUCT does not regulate thermostat settings, but Austin, for example, has municipal rules on habitability that include reasonable temperature maintenance.

Your Rights When the Meter Is in Your Name

If your unit has its own meter, you are a full participant in the Texas deregulated electricity market. You choose your provider, you sign your own contract, and the landlord is not a party to that transaction.

Texas law entitles a retail customer to choose their own provider and to have that choice honored, and it bars anyone who is not a PUCT-certified Retail Electric Provider from selling electric service at retail. PUCT enforcement staff has applied those provisions to landlords: in Docket 56786, opened as a formal investigation in July 2024, the Commission's Division of Compliance and Enforcement alleged that an apartment owner that made itself the customer of record at individually metered units, using a provider of its own choosing, and then billed tenants for their monthly usage was engaged in the unauthorized resale of electricity and in denying tenants the right to choose a provider. If a lease clause requires you to enroll with a named provider, that clause is legally questionable and worth raising with the PUCT or a tenant's rights attorney before you sign.

You also have the right to switch providers when your contract expires. If a landlord threatens to penalize you for switching, that threat has no legal basis under PUCT rules.

On the rate side, the range available to Texas shoppers is wide. As of September 6, 2026, plans listed on Choose My Power ranged from 6.7 cents per kilowatt-hour all-in at 1,000 kWh (4Change Energy, Maxx Saver Value 12, in the lowest-cost utility area) to well above the median listed rate of 15.1 cents per kilowatt-hour at 1,000 kWh. A renter who never shops because a landlord informally pushed them toward a default provider could easily be paying twice the rate available on the open market.

Submetered Apartments: The Rules That Protect You

Submetering is where tenant rights get the most specific and where violations are most common. Texas law (under PUCT Substantive Rule 25.142) sets strict limits on what a landlord operating a submetering system can charge.

The core rule: a landlord may not charge a tenant more per kilowatt-hour than the landlord's own average rate from the utility. In plain terms, no markup on the raw electricity cost is permitted. The landlord may not tack on an administrative or billing fee either. The main extra Texas allows on a submetered bill is a one-time late penalty of up to 5%, and only if the exact amount is stated in the written lease. The only other charges permitted are a reconnection fee of up to $10 after a lawful shutoff for nonpayment and a charge of up to $15 for a tenant-requested submeter test that comes back within accuracy standards, though no charge may be made if the submeter has not been tested within the past year or if it fails the accuracy standards.

Additional required disclosures in a submetered building include:

  • A clear statement that the charge is for "submetered electricity," billed separately from rent
  • The landlord's average rate for the most recent billing period, expressed in cents per kilowatt-hour
  • The submeter readings, the kilowatt-hours billed, and the total amount due, with a due date no less than seven days after issuance
  • A lease statement that the unit is submetered and that common-area electricity is the owner's responsibility, plus a copy of PUCT Rule 25.142 or an approved summary at lease signing

If your submetered bill does not include this information, your landlord may be in violation of PUCT rules. You can file a complaint at puc.texas.gov.

One issue worth checking: the bill-credit structure of the master plan your landlord holds. As of September 6, 2026, 15 of the 120 plans listed on Choose My Power carried a bill-credit cliff where a bill at 500 kWh ran more than $25 above the bill at 1,000 kWh. If a landlord's master plan has that structure and the landlord calculates your per-unit rate using a low-consumption month as the baseline, the effective rate passed to tenants could be distorted. Asking to inspect the landlord's utility billing and average-cost-per-kilowatt-hour calculation for the current month and the 12 preceding months, which PUCT rules entitle you to review, is the way to check.

Whose Name Goes on the Account?

In an individually metered unit, the account should be in the tenant's name. Some landlords, particularly in smaller rental houses, keep the account in their own name between tenants and ask an incoming tenant to pay the bill directly or reimburse through rent. This is not inherently illegal, but it creates problems.

If the account is in the landlord's name, the provider takes instructions from the landlord, not from you. The landlord can disconnect service by simply stopping payment, which in a dispute situation could be used as a form of illegal self-help eviction. Texas Property Code Section 92.008 prohibits landlords from interrupting utilities as a means of forcing a tenant out. That protection is easier to enforce when the utility relationship is directly in the tenant's name.

The practical advice: if your unit has its own meter and the landlord wants to keep the account in their name, ask why. If there is no clear operational reason, enrolling the account in your own name protects you legally and gives you access to provider competition.

When Not to Switch Providers

If a tenant is in an all bills paid unit, there is nothing to switch. The landlord controls the energy relationship, and shopping providers is not an option until the lease ends and the living situation changes.

If a tenant is in the final months of a lease they do not plan to renew, locking into a 24-month fixed-rate plan creates an early termination fee exposure that could cost more than the savings from a lower rate. In that situation, a month-to-month or short-term plan is the rational choice, even if the per-kilowatt-hour rate is higher.

Filing a Complaint

The PUCT's Consumer Protection Division handles complaints about both retail providers and landlord submetering violations. Complaints can be filed online at puc.texas.gov or by phone at 1-888-782-8477. The PUCT does not handle lease disputes, which fall under Texas Property Code and courts, but it does investigate billing rule violations by landlords operating submetering systems.

Knowing which agency covers which problem is the starting point for getting a resolution.