DEWA bill calculator for Dubai homes

DEWA’s own online calculator stops at electricity, water, fuel surcharge and VAT. The bill that lands in your inbox has more on it: meter service charges, Dubai Municipality’s sewerage fee and, if you rent, a housing fee that can be larger than the water charge. The calculator above puts all of them on one slip, and this page explains each line, with the rates read from DEWA’s published tariff and the decrees behind the municipality fees.

Hivly is independent. We are not DEWA or Dubai Municipality, and your official bill always wins over an estimate.

How a DEWA bill is calculated, step by step

A monthly residential bill is built in this order. Steps 1 to 5 are DEWA’s charges; steps 6 and 7 are Dubai Municipality fees that DEWA collects on the same bill.

1. Electricity by slab. Take the month’s kWh. The first 2,000 kWh are billed at 23 fils, the next 2,000 at 28 fils, the next 2,000 at 32 fils and everything above 6,000 kWh at 38 fils. Only the units inside each slab get that slab’s rate. Using 2,001 kWh does not move your whole bill to 28 fils; it adds one kWh at 28 fils.
2. Water by slab. Since the March 2025 billing cycle DEWA bills water in cubic metres. For homes, the first 27 m³ cost AED 7.70 each, the next 27 m³ AED 8.80 and anything above 54 m³ AED 10.12.
3. Fuel surcharge. Every kWh and every cubic metre also carries a fuel surcharge. DEWA’s slab page shows 6 fils per kWh and AED 1.10 per m³ for October 2026.
4. Meter service charge. A fixed monthly charge per meter: AED 5, 6 or 35 for electricity meter types 1 to 3, and AED 5 or 7 for water meter types 1 and 2.
5. VAT at 5%. DEWA applies VAT to each service (electricity, then water) and rounds each to the fils, half up. Its own calculator turns AED 445.50 of water charges into AED 22.28 of VAT, not 22.27.
6. Sewerage fee. Dubai Municipality’s fee on the water you use: 2 fils per gallon in 2026, set by decree in gallons even though the water itself is now billed in m³. No VAT.
7. Housing fee. For tenants, 5% of the annual rent in the Ejari contract, split into twelve monthly instalments. No VAT.

The calculator follows this order. The note under its total shows what DEWA’s own calculator would give for the same readings, so you can see how much the extra lines add.

The current DEWA tariff

These tables are generated from our copy of DEWA’s published rates. The fuel surcharge column adds the October 2026 surcharge so you can see the real cost of one more unit before VAT.

Electricity, residential and commercial (per kWh, per month)

Monthly use	Slab rate	With fuel surcharge
First 2,000 kWh	23 fils	29 fils
2,001–4,000 kWh	28 fils	34 fils
4,001–6,000 kWh	32 fils	38 fils
Above 6,000 kWh	38 fils	44 fils

Industrial accounts have their own two-step tariff (23 fils up to 10,000 kWh, then 38 fils); the calculator does not cover them.

Water (per cubic metre, per month)

Slab	Homes	Commercial and industrial	Rate	With fuel surcharge
Slab 1	First 27 m³	First 45 m³	AED 7.70	AED 8.80
Slab 2	27–54 m³	45–91 m³	AED 8.80	AED 9.90
Slab 3	Above 54 m³	Above 91 m³	AED 10.12	AED 11.22

The water slab limits are DEWA’s rounded conversions of the old gallon limits: 27 m³ stands in for 6,000 gallons and 54 m³ for 12,000. The rates themselves did not change when the unit did. AED 7.70 per m³ is the old 3.5 fils per gallon.

Meter service charge (AED per meter, per month)

Meter	Electricity	Water
Type 1	AED 5.00	AED 5.00
Type 2	AED 6.00	AED 7.00
Type 3	AED 35.00	–

Worked examples

All three examples below use readings we chose, not averages. Each set of readings was run through DEWA’s Tariff Calculator on 30 October 2026, and our code gives the same result to the fils. We then added the lines DEWA’s calculator leaves out. Our test suite runs these same examples every time the site is built.

Example 1: a rented flat in a mild month

1,500 kWh of electricity and 20 m³ of water, an Ejari rent of AED 120,000 a year, Type 1 meters, billed in 2026.

• Electricity: 1,500 kWh all fall in the first slab, so 1,500 × 23 fils = AED 345.00. Fuel surcharge 1,500 × 6 fils = AED 90.00. DEWA’s calculator adds 5% VAT of AED 21.75 for a total of AED 456.75.
• Water: 20 m³ × AED 7.70 = AED 154.00, plus 20 × AED 1.10 = AED 22.00 surcharge and AED 8.80 VAT, for AED 184.80.
• DEWA’s calculator total: AED 641.55.

Now the full bill. The AED 5 meter charge on each service goes into the VAT base, so electricity VAT becomes AED 22.00 and water VAT AED 9.05. The sewerage fee is 20 m³ ≈ 4,399 gallons × 2 fils = AED 87.99. The housing fee is 5% of AED 120,000 ÷ 12 = AED 500.00. Neither carries VAT.

DEWA bill estimate

ResidentialFuel surcharge as published for October 2026

Electricity
Slab 1: First 2,000 kWh1,500 kWh × 23 fils	AED 345.00
Fuel surcharge1,500 kWh × 6 fils	AED 90.00
Meter service charge, Type 1	AED 5.00
VAT 5%5% of AED 440.00	AED 22.00
Electricity with VAT	AED 462.00
Water
Slab 1: First 27 m³20 m³ × AED 7.70	AED 154.00
Fuel surcharge20 m³ × AED 1.10	AED 22.00
Meter service charge, Type 1	AED 5.00
VAT 5%5% of AED 181.00	AED 9.05
Water with VAT	AED 190.05
Dubai Municipality fees (no VAT)
Sewerage fee, 2026 rate4,399 gallons × 2 fils	AED 87.99
Housing fee5% of AED 120,000.00 a year, divided by 12	AED 500.00
Estimated bill	AED 1,240.04

Example 1. Fuel surcharge as shown for October 2026; sewerage at the 2026 rate.

The housing fee is the single largest line here, larger than the whole water charge. That is normal for a tenant in Dubai, and it is why our housing fee calculator exists as a separate page.

Example 2: a villa in August

6,500 kWh and 60 m³, owner-occupied (so no housing fee in this example), Type 1 meters, billed in 2026.

• Electricity crosses all four slabs: 2,000 × 23 fils = 460.00, 2,000 × 28 fils = 560.00, 2,000 × 32 fils = 640.00 and 500 × 38 fils = 190.00, for AED 1,850.00. The fuel surcharge on 6,500 kWh adds AED 390.00.
• Water crosses all three: 27 × 7.70 = 207.90, 27 × 8.80 = 237.60 and 6 × 10.12 = 60.72, for AED 506.22, plus AED 66.00 surcharge.
• DEWA’s calculator total: AED 2,952.83. Water VAT there is AED 28.61, because 5% of 572.22 is 28.611.

DEWA bill estimate

ResidentialFuel surcharge as published for October 2026

Electricity
Slab 1: First 2,000 kWh2,000 kWh × 23 fils	AED 460.00
Slab 2: 2,001–4,000 kWh2,000 kWh × 28 fils	AED 560.00
Slab 3: 4,001–6,000 kWh2,000 kWh × 32 fils	AED 640.00
Slab 4: Above 6,000 kWh500 kWh × 38 fils	AED 190.00
Fuel surcharge6,500 kWh × 6 fils	AED 390.00
Meter service charge, Type 1	AED 5.00
VAT 5%5% of AED 2,245.00	AED 112.25
Electricity with VAT	AED 2,357.25
Water
Slab 1: First 27 m³27 m³ × AED 7.70	AED 207.90
Slab 2: 27–54 m³27 m³ × AED 8.80	AED 237.60
Slab 3: Above 54 m³6 m³ × AED 10.12	AED 60.72
Fuel surcharge60 m³ × AED 1.10	AED 66.00
Meter service charge, Type 1	AED 5.00
VAT 5%5% of AED 577.22	AED 28.86
Water with VAT	AED 606.08
Dubai Municipality fees (no VAT)
Sewerage fee, 2026 rate13,198 gallons × 2 fils	AED 263.96
Estimated bill	AED 3,227.29

Example 2. Owner-occupied, so no housing fee is shown.

With sewerage and meters the bill is AED 3,227.29. The same readings in 2027, when the sewerage rate rises to 2.8 fils a gallon, give AED 3,332.88: the sewerage line alone goes from AED 263.96 to AED 369.55.

Example 3: a small shop

A commercial account with 3,000 kWh and 50 m³. Commercial electricity uses the same slabs as homes. Commercial water uses wider slabs, so all of the first 45 m³ are at AED 7.70.

• Electricity: 2,000 × 23 fils + 1,000 × 28 fils = AED 740.00, plus AED 180.00 surcharge and AED 46.00 VAT = AED 966.00.
• Water: 45 × 7.70 = 346.50 and 5 × 8.80 = 44.00, so AED 390.50, plus AED 55.00 surcharge. VAT is 5% of 445.50 = 22.275, which DEWA rounds up to AED 22.28, for AED 467.78.
• DEWA’s calculator total: AED 1,433.78.

DEWA bill estimate

CommercialFuel surcharge as published for October 2026

Electricity
Slab 1: First 2,000 kWh2,000 kWh × 23 fils	AED 460.00
Slab 2: 2,001–4,000 kWh1,000 kWh × 28 fils	AED 280.00
Fuel surcharge3,000 kWh × 6 fils	AED 180.00
Meter service charge, Type 1	AED 5.00
VAT 5%5% of AED 925.00	AED 46.25
Electricity with VAT	AED 971.25
Water
Slab 1: First 45 m³45 m³ × AED 7.70	AED 346.50
Slab 2: 45–91 m³5 m³ × AED 8.80	AED 44.00
Fuel surcharge50 m³ × AED 1.10	AED 55.00
Meter service charge, Type 1	AED 5.00
VAT 5%5% of AED 450.50	AED 22.53
Water with VAT	AED 473.03
Dubai Municipality fees (no VAT)
Sewerage fee, 2026 rate10,998 gallons × 2 fils	AED 219.97
Estimated bill	AED 1,664.25

Example 3. Commercial premises; the housing fee is not part of this calculation.

Why a summer bill can triple

Take the flat from example 1. In a month when it uses 1,500 kWh, electricity with fuel surcharge, Type 1 meter and VAT costs AED 462.00. In a hot month at 4,500 kWh it costs AED 1,527.75. Three times the energy costs 3.3 times as much, because 2,500 of those kWh now sit in the 28 and 32 fil slabs.

The marginal cost tells the story better than the average. Before VAT, a kWh in the first slab costs 29 fils with the fuel surcharge; in the top slab it costs 44 fils. That is why the same habits cost so much more in a villa already above 6,000 kWh.

There is no summer tariff. The slab rates are the same every month; only the volume changes, and with it the slabs you reach.

The sewerage fee: 2025, 2026 and 2027

Dubai Municipality’s sewerage fee has been on DEWA bills since 2015, at 1 fil per gallon of water. Decree 47 of 2024 raises it in three steps. The law sets the fee in fils per gallon, while DEWA now bills water in cubic metres, so the per-m³ figures below are our conversion (1 m³ = 219.9692 imperial gallons). DEWA has not published a per-m³ sewerage rate.

Dubai sewerage fee by year

Bills in	Per gallon	Per m³ (our conversion)	For 20 m³ a month
2015 to 2024	1 fils	AED 2.20	AED 43.99
2025	1.5 fils	AED 3.30	AED 65.99
2026	2 fils	AED 4.40	AED 87.99
From 2027	2.8 fils	AED 6.16	AED 123.18

Three things about this fee catch people out:

• It scales with water, not with electricity. A household that uses little water but runs the air conditioning hard will barely notice it.
• It carries no VAT, so the 5% on your bill does not grow with it.
• Units occupied by UAE nationals are exempt under Decree 1 of 2015. The calculator drops the line when you choose “UAE national home”.

The decree also sets a lower rate of 0.5 fils per gallon for buildings on private sewer networks that Dubai Municipality does not run. That rate was not changed in 2024. The calculator uses the public network rate, which covers most homes; if your building has its own treatment plant, your sewerage line may be lower.

We do not know how DEWA treats a bill whose reading period straddles 1 January, when the rate changes. The calculator applies one year’s rate to the whole bill.

The housing fee in one paragraph

Tenants in Dubai pay Dubai Municipality a housing fee of 5% of the annual rent registered in Ejari, collected in twelve monthly slices on the DEWA bill. On AED 120,000 a year that is AED 500.00 a month. There is no VAT on it. Owners who live in their own homes, UAE nationals, short or changed contracts and wrong charges each need more space than fits here, so they have their own page: the Dubai housing fee calculator, which also checks the fee on your bill against your rent.

What carries VAT and what does not

DEWA’s VAT page splits the bill cleanly.

VAT on DEWA bill lines

Line on the bill	5% VAT?
Electricity and water consumption	Yes
Fuel surcharge	Yes
Meter service charge	Our reading: yes (see below)
Sewerage fee (Dubai Municipality)	No
Housing fee (Dubai Municipality)	No
Irrigation fee (Dubai Municipality)	No
Knowledge and innovation fees	No

The meter charge is the one line DEWA does not name. Its slab page prints “VAT applicable on these tariffs” directly under the meter charge tables, and the meter charge is not in the exempt list, so the calculator adds VAT to it. On a Type 1 meter that is 25 fils a month either way.

UAE nationals: a separate tariff DEWA no longer shows

Executive Council Resolution 16 of 2011, which set the slab system in the first place, gives homes and farms of UAE nationals their own rates:

Electricity, UAE national homes (Resolution 16 of 2011)

Monthly use	National rate	Expat rate for comparison
First 2,000 kWh	7.5 fils	23 fils
2,001–4,000 kWh	9 fils	28 fils
4,001–6,000 kWh	10.5 fils	32 fils
Above 6,000 kWh	12.5 fils	38 fils

Water for national homes is free up to 10,000 imperial gallons a month (about 45.46 m³) and 1.5 fils a gallon above that. The resolution exempts national homes from the fuel surcharge. With the 2011 rates, 3,000 kWh and 30 m³ come to AED 252.00 including VAT, or AED 262.50 with Type 1 meter charges. The same readings on the standard tariff cost AED 1,246.67 before meters, so the national rate works out at about a fifth.

Low-income Emirati households approved by the Ministry of Community Development can also receive an inflation allowance from DEWA of up to AED 400 a month, capped at the month’s bill. The calculator does not deduct it.

Villas, flats, solar panels and empty homes

Villas with more than one meter. Each DEWA account is billed on its own slabs. A villa whose load is split across two accounts gets two sets of cheap first slabs. You cannot choose this; it depends on how the property was connected.

Flats with district cooling. In many towers the air conditioning is supplied as chilled water by a cooling provider, billed separately from DEWA. Your DEWA electricity may then be modest even in August, while the cooling bill carries the summer. The calculator here covers the DEWA bill only.

Shams Dubai rooftop solar. DEWA nets the energy you export, plus any credit carried over from earlier months, off what you import before it applies the slabs and the fuel surcharge. That means solar knocks units off the most expensive slab first. A villa importing 4,500 kWh with 2,000 kWh of credit is billed for 2,500 kWh: electricity falls from AED 1,527.75 to AED 792.75, a saving of AED 735.00 in one month. Unused credit rolls over with no expiry, but it is lost when the property is sold or the tenant changes, and it can offset only accounts on the same plot. In a shared building the owner’s solar can offset the common-area meters, not the tenants’ flats. Enter your credit in the “Shams Dubai” field and the slip shows the netting.

Vacant homes. An empty unit with zero consumption still pays its meter service charges, AED 10.50 a month with VAT on two Type 1 meters. The housing fee runs with the Ejari contract, not with occupancy, so moving out early does not by itself stop it.

Moving in. DEWA takes a refundable security deposit and a one-off activation charge:

DEWA move-in charges

Charge	Amount
Security deposit, apartment (refundable)	AED 2,000.00
Security deposit, villa (refundable)	AED 4,000.00
Activation, small meter	AED 125.00
Activation, large meter	AED 300.00
Registration fee	AED 10.00
Knowledge fee (no VAT)	AED 10.00
Innovation fee (no VAT)	AED 10.00
Total activation, small meter	AED 155.00

Holders of the Thukher and Sanad cards pay half the activation charge. Owners get their deposit back only when they sell the property.

Common mistakes in other DEWA guides

While checking the figures for this page we read the guides that rank for DEWA bill searches. Several carry errors that change the answer. We list the errors, not the sites, and each correction links to the official source in the sources list below.

• Wrong second slab rate. One guide gives the 2,001 to 4,000 kWh slab as 23 fils. It is 28 fils on DEWA’s slab page.
• VAT on everything. Some guides say 5% VAT applies to all DEWA charges, or that the Dubai Municipality charges “include VAT”. DEWA’s VAT page says the housing, sewerage and irrigation fees and the knowledge and innovation fees carry no VAT.
• Water still in gallons. Guides updated as late as October 2026 still describe water billed in imperial gallons. DEWA switched to cubic metres from the March 2025 billing cycle.
• A sewerage rate that is ten times too small. One guide converts 1 fil per gallon to “about AED 0.22 per m³”. One fil per gallon is about AED 2.20 per m³, and the rate in 2026 is 2 fils, not 1.
• Abu Dhabi’s rate in a Dubai article. 26.8 fils per kWh is the Abu Dhabi expat rate set by TAQA Distribution. Dubai’s first slab is 23 fils.
• Stale or mislabelled fuel surcharge. Some pages label the surcharge with an old month. Archived copies of DEWA’s page show 6 fils per kWh since around August 2022, but because DEWA can change it, a figure without a date is not worth much.

Using the calculator with your own bill

Your DEWA bill shows the electricity consumption in kWh and water in m³ for the reading period. Enter those two numbers, pick the account type and the year, and add your Ejari rent if you rent. The other fields are optional.

If the calculator and your bill disagree, these are the usual reasons:

• The reading period is not a calendar month. DEWA reads meters on a cycle, so a bill can cover 28 or 34 days. More days means more kWh, and possibly a higher slab.
• An estimated reading. When the meter is not read, DEWA estimates, and the next actual reading corrects it. A low bill followed by a high one is often just that correction.
• Arrears or credits. Unpaid amounts or overpayments from earlier bills are carried into the total you owe.
• A different meter type from the Type 1 we assume.
• Lines we do not model: irrigation fees and any other municipality charges on the bill.

What we are not sure about

Four points above rest on our reading rather than a sentence DEWA has written: the national tariff (in the 2011 resolution, not on DEWA’s current pages), the meter type (we assume Type 1), VAT on the meter charge, and the per-m³ sewerage rate (our conversion; DEWA may round differently). One more: the housing fee exemption for nationals is reported in the press but not stated on any official page we could open. The fuel surcharge can change; the figure here is the one DEWA showed for October 2026, and we recheck it monthly.

If you have a bill that shows something different from what this page says, write to hello@hivly.net with the line in question (you can black out the account number). Corrections are dated in the change log below.