Free tool · federal survey data
What should your building’s electricity cost?
Pick the kind of building, its size and the state. See what surveyed buildings like yours used, what that costs at your state’s commercial price, and where your own use sits among them. A range from official government data, not a guess.
A 10,000 square foot office building in Texas typically pays about $970 a month for electricity, and the middle half of comparable buildings pay between $580 and $1,500. The range comes from 509 surveyed buildings in the South region, priced at the state's commercial average. Your own bill is the real answer.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, CBECS 2018 and Form EIA-861M
Estimate your building
Three boxes are enough. The example below is a real calculation, so you can see what comes back before you enter yours. Add your price or your last 12 months of kWh and it shows where your own building sits.
How the estimate is built
1. Usage, from the survey
The U.S. Energy Information Administration surveyed 6,436 commercial buildings in 2018 and recorded the electricity each one used. Each stands for many real buildings. We take the kWh per square foot of the surveyed buildings of your type and show the middle half of them, with the median.
2. Price, from your state
The state's average commercial price for the 12 months to August 2026, from EIA's monthly utility survey, scaled for building size: in the same survey small buildings paid more per kWh than large ones. Enter your own price and it uses that instead.
3. A range, with its basis
Usage times price, at the 25th percentile, median and 75th. It says how many surveyed buildings the range rests on and whether they are in your region, and it says so plainly when a building type has too few to show.
What it will not tell you
- It is not your bill. Buildings of one type and size still differ in hours, equipment, age and climate. A range is the honest answer; the survey's own spread is wide.
- It is not a rate you can buy. The price is a state average of what every commercial customer paid, scaled for size. A supplier's offer depends on your account and is a separate question.
- It does not cover a suite inside a larger building. The survey measured whole buildings, classed by what fills the most floor space. A restaurant unit in a strip centre, or one floor of an office block, can use more or less, especially if the landlord supplies the air conditioning.
- It does not cover manufacturing. The survey is of commercial buildings. Factory load is driven by process equipment, not floor area, so there is no comparable figure.
- It is 2018 usage at today's prices. That is the most recent survey EIA has published. It carries the usage pattern forward and does not adjust for efficiency or load changes since.
Electricity use by building type
The middle half is the range from the 25th to the 75th percentile of surveyed buildings, in kWh per square foot per year. Where fewer than 30 buildings were surveyed no range is shown, because a handful of buildings cannot say what yours should use. Select a type to open the estimator on it, or see these figures as cost per square foot.
| Building type | Surveyed | Typical size (sq ft) | Median | Middle half | How solid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Office building | 1,329 | 5,000 | 10.2 | 6.1 to 15.7 | Solid |
| Medical, dental or outpatient clinic | 257 | 5,500 | 12.7 | 7.6 to 19.7 | Solid |
| Retail store or showroom | 338 | 6,500 | 9.0 | 5.1 to 14.5 | Solid |
| Strip shopping centre | 208 | 12,750 | 19.9 | 16.2 to 24.3 | Indicative |
| Grocery or convenience store | 91 | 2,400 | 47.7 | 33.2 to 70.7 | Fair |
| Any restaurant, café, bar or bakery | 218 | 3,500 | 39.8 | 23.1 to 58.8 | Solid |
| Sit-down restaurant or cafeteria | 132 | 3,850 | 37.1 | 21.1 to 52.1 | Solid |
| Fast food or quick service | 54 | 3,300 | 59.7 | 42.3 to 83.1 | Fair |
| Warehouse or distribution centre | 712 | 6,700 | 3.3 | 1.6 to 7.8 | Solid |
| Refrigerated warehouse (cold storage) | 23 | 53,000 | — | not shown | Too few |
| Vehicle service or repair shop | 106 | 4,800 | 4.6 | 2.4 to 8.7 | Fair |
| Repair shop, salon, laundry or other service | 349 | 4,200 | 6.2 | 3.1 to 10.7 | Solid |
| Hotel, motel or inn | 304 | 12,000 | 14.1 | 8.9 to 20.8 | Solid |
| Hospital | 276 | 122,000 | 30.6 | 21.9 to 35.3 | Solid |
| Nursing home or assisted living | 114 | 29,500 | 20.0 | 8.9 to 28.2 | Fair |
| K-12 school | 720 | 15,000 | 9.7 | 6.2 to 13.2 | Solid |
| College or university building | 153 | 10,000 | 10.4 | 7.4 to 14.3 | Solid |
| Place of worship | 271 | 8,000 | 4.2 | 2.5 to 7.5 | Solid |
| Gym, fitness or recreation facility | 148 | 8,300 | 8.6 | 6.5 to 16.5 | Solid |
| Meeting, entertainment or other public assembly | 481 | 6,100 | 8.0 | 3.8 to 14.9 | Solid |
| Any commercial building (not sure) | 6,357 | 5,600 | 8.6 | 4.1 to 15.8 | Solid |
Download this table as CSV, including the regional ranges. Free to use; please credit the U.S. Energy Information Administration and this page. "How solid" is the survey's own measure: Solid is 100 or more buildings with a small margin of error, Fair fewer buildings or a wider margin, Indicative a small sample or EIA-estimated use.
Small buildings pay more per kWh
The same survey recorded what each building paid for its electricity. Dividing by the kWh, small buildings paid more than large ones. The estimator uses these ratios to scale a state's average price to your size, and it changes smoothly between the classes below rather than jumping at an edge.
| Floor area (sq ft) | Surveyed | Price per kWh against the average |
|---|---|---|
| 1,001 to 5,000 | 959 | 12% more |
| 5,001 to 10,000 | 516 | 8% more |
| 10,001 to 25,000 | 633 | 6% more |
| 25,001 to 50,000 | 637 | 4% more |
| 50,001 to 100,000 | 874 | 4% less |
| 100,001 to 200,000 | 1,013 | 6% less |
| 200,001 to 500,000 | 1,276 | 5% less |
| Over 500,000 | 449 | 10% less |
Download as CSV. These are ratios, not prices: the survey's prices are from 2018, so only how much more or less each size paid is used, applied to today's state prices.
Common questions
- How much electricity does a commercial building use per square foot?
- Across the 6,357 commercial buildings in the federal 2018 survey that use electricity, the median building used 8.6 kWh per square foot a year and the average was 12.6. It varies a great deal by type. The middle half of offices used 6.1 to 15.7 kWh per square foot, retail stores 5.1 to 14.5, warehouses 1.6 to 7.8 and restaurants and cafeterias 21.1 to 52.1.
- How much does electricity cost per square foot for a commercial building?
- At each state's average commercial price, the average surveyed building would pay about $1.75 per square foot a year at the 13.87¢ national average, from about $0.96 in North Dakota to about $5.08 in Hawaii. Building type matters more than anything: a warehouse uses a fraction of what a restaurant does.
- How accurate is a commercial electricity estimate from floor area?
- It is a screen, not a measurement. Buildings of the same type and size differ a lot in hours, equipment, age and climate, so this tool shows the range the middle half of surveyed buildings fell in, not a single figure. A bill from your own building is always the better number, and the instant bill check uses it.
- Why does a small building pay more per kWh?
- In the survey, buildings of 1,001 to 5,000 square feet paid 12% more per kWh than the average building, and buildings over 500,000 square feet paid 10% less. The survey records what was paid, not why. A likely part of the reason is that fixed monthly charges are spread over fewer kWh in a small building, and larger accounts are often on different rate schedules. The estimator scales the state price for size so a small building is not priced like a large one.
- Where does the data come from?
- Usage comes from the U.S. Energy Information Administration's 2018 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey public-use data. Prices come from EIA's monthly survey of electric utilities, for the 12 months to August 2026. We reproduce EIA's own published tables from the survey data as a check before anything is used.
An estimate tells you what a building like yours usually pays. A bill tells you what you actually pay, and why. It takes three numbers and runs in your browser.