SP Tariff Explained: How Singapore's Electricity Tariff Works
Last updated: 12 September 2026
Every electricity plan in Singapore, whether you're on the default regulated tariff or a retailer plan from the Open Electricity Market, is priced with reference to one number: the SP tariff. Understanding what it is and how it moves makes it much easier to judge whether a fixed-rate or discount-off-tariff plan is the better deal for you.
What is the SP tariff?
The SP tariff — sometimes called the regulated tariff — is the price per kWh that households pay if they don't choose a retailer under the Open Electricity Market and instead stay with SP Group, Singapore's power grid operator. It is quoted inclusive of GST and reviewed quarterly. Even if you do switch to a retailer, the SP tariff still matters, because "discount off tariff" plans are priced as a percentage discount off this exact rate.
Who sets it, and how often does it change?
SP Group reviews and publishes the tariff every quarter, with rates typically taking effect from the start of each quarter (January, April, July, October). The methodology and cost components behind the tariff are regulated by the Energy Market Authority (EMA) — SP Group doesn't set the price arbitrarily; it recovers a set of defined cost components, and those components are reviewed and adjusted on a schedule set by EMA.
What makes up the tariff
The regulated tariff is not a single flat charge — it's built from several cost components:
- Energy costs — the cost of the electricity itself, largely a pass-through of wholesale electricity market prices, which is why the tariff moves with fuel and energy prices.
- Network costs — the cost of maintaining and operating the power grid that delivers electricity to your home, regardless of which retailer you buy from.
- Market support services fee — covers metering, billing, and market administration services that SP Group provides to all households and retailers.
- Power system operation fee — covers the cost of operating the power system in real time to keep supply and demand balanced.
Because network and system operation costs are shared infrastructure, they apply no matter which retailer you're with — switching retailers changes who you buy the energy portion from, not who maintains the grid.
How GST is added to the tariff
EMA and SP Group set the tariff before GST, then it's grossed up by Singapore's 9% GST rate to produce the figure quoted on your bill and everywhere on this site. For Q3 2026, the pre-GST rate was 31.91¢/kWh; adding 9% GST (31.91 × 1.09) brings that to 34.78¢/kWh. Every rate shown on this site, and every retailer plan we track, is already GST-inclusive, so you can compare them directly without doing this conversion yourself.
How the tariff has moved over the last few years
Over the past three years, the tariff mostly moved within a fairly narrow band — peaking around 32.6¢/kWh through 2024, then drifting down to a multi-year low of 29.11¢/kWh in Q1 2026 — before jumping sharply to 34.78¢/kWh in Q3 2026, a 17.0% increase in a single quarter and the largest single-quarter move in this window. You can see the full quarter-by-quarter trend charted on our plan comparison page.
That Q3 2026 spike wasn't caused by network costs or local operating fees — SP Group's own tariff revision notice attributes the entire 17% increase to the energy cost component, which tracks the price of the natural gas that generates roughly 95% of Singapore's electricity. Global gas prices spiked as the Middle East conflict escalated from 28 February 2026 and stayed elevated for months afterward. Because EMA sets each quarter's tariff based on fuel prices from roughly the first two and a half months of the previous quarter, Q2 2026's tariff only caught the tail end of that spike, while Q3 2026 caught a fuller stretch of it — which is why the jump landed a quarter later and was so much larger. It's a useful illustration of why the tariff exists at all: it passes through the real, volatile cost of the fuel used to generate Singapore's electricity, rather than smoothing it away.
How it relates to retailer plans
Retailers in the Open Electricity Market price their plans in one of a few ways relative to this benchmark:
- Fixed-rate plans lock in a flat cents-per-kWh rate for your contract term, independent of what the SP tariff does next quarter.
- Discount-off-tariff plans are priced as a percentage discount off the prevailing SP tariff, so your rate moves automatically whenever SP Group updates it each quarter.
See the full breakdown in our fixed vs discount-off-tariff comparison guide.
Where to check the current rate
The current SP tariff and its 5-year trend are shown at the top of our plan comparison page, refreshed daily. For the official published rate, see SP Group's own tariff page linked below.