Every line on a pub electricity bill, decoded

Most people running a pub look at one number on an electricity bill, which is the one at the bottom. That is fair enough when it is roughly what you expected. It stops being fair enough the month it is not, because by then you need to know which part moved and none of the labels help.

This is a walk through the lines on a business electricity bill, what each one actually is, and which ones are worth arguing about. It is the written-up version of the checks we do when somebody sends us a bill and asks whether it looks right.

The supply number

Look for a box marked with a large S, usually on the back of the bill or at the bottom of the first page. That is the MPAN, the meter point administration number, and it is how the whole industry identifies your electricity supply.

It has 21 digits arranged in two rows. The 13 digits along the bottom row are the bit that matters day to day. That is the meter point reference: the unique identifier for that supply. If you ever ring a supplier, a broker or a network operator about electricity, that number is what stops the conversation being about the wrong meter.

Gas has an equivalent called the MPRN, which is a shorter number and works the same way.

Keep both somewhere other than the bill. When a site changes hands, or a query drags on for weeks, the supply number is the thing that keeps everyone talking about the same meter.

Worth checking: that you have one MPAN for every electricity supply on the site, not just the main one. A pub may have a separate meter for an outbuilding, a flat, a kitchen extension or cellar equipment. A meter nobody has listed is the one most likely to sit on default terms for years without anyone noticing.

The profile class

The first two digits of the MPAN's top row are the profile class, and they tell you how your consumption is settled.

00 means the supply is settled half-hourly: there is a record of what it used in every 30-minute period. Classes 01 to 04 were traditionally settled another way, using an industry load profile rather than your actual pattern. Classes 05 to 08 were moved to mandatory half-hourly settlement in 2017 under an industry change called P272.

This matters less for the price than people expect. Ofgem's own guidance on the 2017 change says many businesses saw no change or a fall in their bills, while some were asked to pay more because collecting and processing half-hourly data takes suppliers more work. It is a settlement and data change, not a saving.

Where it earns its keep is visibility. A half-hourly data file shows you a pub's electricity by half hour, which is how a steady overnight load becomes obvious. Something drawing power at four in the morning, when the place is shut, is a cellar cooler working too hard or a piece of kit nobody switches off. An annual total will never show you that.

The industry is extending half-hourly settlement to everyone. The Market-wide Half-Hourly Settlement programme started moving smart and traditional meters across in October 2025, and Elexon's plan has the last of them moved by 7 May 2027.

Worth asking: is this supply settled half-hourly now, and can you send me one month of half-hourly data? It is a reasonable request and most suppliers will do it.

The meter serial number and the readings

The meter serial number on the bill should match the number printed on the physical meter. Not the label somebody wrote on the cupboard door, which is a clue rather than evidence.

Next to the readings, look for whether each one is actual or estimated. Bills usually mark this with a letter, A or E, or spell it out. An estimate is not automatically wrong, but it is a guess, and guesses compound. Three estimated bills in a row followed by one actual read is how a pub ends up with a catch-up bill nobody budgeted for.

Worth doing: photograph every meter showing the reading and the serial number in the same shot, roughly quarterly and always at a handover. It takes five minutes and it is the only evidence that settles a billing dispute quickly. If the serial numbers do not match, send the supplier the bill and the photograph and ask it to check the mapping. A meter replacement may explain it, so a mismatch is not proof of anything on its own. It is just something specific for them to investigate, which is more than most queries give them.

The unit rate

The unit rate is what you pay per kilowatt hour, and it is the number everyone compares.

It is worth knowing that it is not purely the cost of the electricity. A unit rate bundles the wholesale cost of the energy itself with network charges for moving it, and various policy and balancing costs. The proportions shift over time and between suppliers.

For a typical pub, our estimate is that somewhere between 40% and 60% of the price is not for the electricity at all. Our guide to energy and non-energy costs goes through every one of those charges, who sets it and when it changes, with a calculator for your own site.

That is not a reason to distrust the number. It is a reason not to treat it as the whole picture, because two quotes with the same unit rate can behave very differently once everything else is included.

Worth checking: that the unit rate on the bill is the one on the contract you signed. It sounds obvious. It is one of the more common things we find, usually after a renewal where the new rate started on a different date from the one everyone remembered.

The standing charge

The standing charge is a fixed daily amount you pay whether the pub trades or not. It covers being connected: the meter, the network connection and the cost of maintaining your supply point.

There is no useful market figure to quote here, because what a site is charged depends on its supplier, its meter type, its network region and the contract it is on. The difference between sites is genuinely enormous, which is why any headline number would be meaningless for your pub.

Worth doing: compare the standing charge as its own line when you are looking at quotes, rather than folding everything into a unit-rate comparison. Multiply the daily figure by 365 and put that number next to the annual cost of the units. For a site with modest consumption, the standing charge can be a much larger share of the bill than people assume, and a quote with an attractive unit rate does not always survive that arithmetic.

Climate Change Levy

The Climate Change Levy is a government tax on business energy, charged per kilowatt hour and shown as its own line.

From 1 April 2026 the main rate is 0.801p per kWh for both electricity and gas. It rises to 0.827p per kWh from 1 April 2027, so anyone modelling costs into next year should use the higher figure for the period after that date.

Not every supply pays it. A supply treated as domestic for VAT purposes does not attract CCL at all. That is the link most people miss: the VAT position and the CCL position move together.

Worth checking: whether any of your supplies should be treated as domestic. If one is, and the bill shows CCL on it, that is a question for the supplier.

VAT

Business electricity is normally charged at 20%. A supply treated as domestic gets the reduced rate, which for electricity in England, Scotland and Wales has been zero since 1 October and stays there until 31 March 2027. Gas stays at 5% where it qualifies. Whether the zero rate runs past March is a decision for the Budget on 28 October.

The zero rate did not change which supplies qualify. A pub's main trading meter is still at 20%. What changed is the value of getting a qualifying supply onto the right rate. We covered that in detail in Zero VAT on electricity: which pub supplies qualify.

Two routes get a supply to the lower rate.

The first is automatic. HMRC treats electricity of 1,000 kWh a month or less as domestic, and gas of 4,397 kWh a month or less. The important detail is that the test is applied per customer per premises, not per meter, which catches people out on multi-meter sites.

The second is the certificate of qualifying use, and it is the one that costs money to get wrong. Where part of a supply serves domestic accommodation, such as a flat above the pub, the supplier can only apply the reduced rate if it holds a certificate from you. No certificate on file means 20% on the whole supply, and the supplier is correct to charge it. If the domestic use is 60% or more of the total, the certificate covers the entire supply. Below that, it covers the domestic share.

An incorrect certificate carries a penalty, so it is worth being accurate rather than optimistic.

Worth checking: the VAT line on every supply you have, not just the main one. The outbuilding, the seasonal supply and the flat are where the wrong rate hides.

The contract position

This one is not always a line on the bill, which is part of the problem.

Using energy at a premises does not mean you have agreed a contract. Ofgem is explicit that a business which moves in and starts using electricity or gas before agreeing terms is placed on a deemed contract. The supply works. The rate is set by the supplier and there is no price cap on it.

Out-of-contract rates work similarly and apply when a fixed term has ended and nothing has replaced it.

Either way, it is the most expensive place a pub can sit, and sites stay there for months because nothing on the bill says "you are on default rates and have been since March".

Worth asking, in writing: is this supply on a deemed, out-of-contract or fixed-term rate, and if it is fixed, what is the end date and the notice period? Ofgem's rules do not allow a supplier to charge a termination fee or demand a notice period to leave a deemed contract, which is worth knowing before anyone tells you otherwise.

The five questions that get a straight answer

If you only do one pass over a bill, do this one:

1. Does the meter serial number on the bill match the meter?
2. Is the opening or closing read actual or estimated?
3. Is the unit rate the one on the contract we signed?
4. Is the VAT rate right for this supply, and is CCL being charged on a supply that should be treated as domestic?
5. Is this supply on a contract, and when does it end?

None of those need a specialist to ask. All of them need a specific answer, which is what makes them harder to deflect than "can you check this bill please".

If something does not add up

Put the query in writing and keep the date. If it becomes a formal complaint, say the word complaint, so there is no doubt about when the eight weeks started. After eight weeks, or sooner if the supplier says it can do no more, you can take it to the Energy Ombudsman. The Ombudsman is free, it has covered small businesses as well as microbusinesses since December 2024, and its decision binds the supplier if you accept it, but not you.

If you would rather not do the pass yourself, send us a recent bill for each supply and we will go through it and tell you what we would challenge and why. No obligation, and you get the reasoning either way. 02476 328995.