How Much Can a Landlord Charge for Electricity? The Caps and the Common Mistakes

How Much Can a Landlord Charge for Electricity? The Caps and the Common Mistakes

"Five dollars a unit" used to be an unwritten convention in Taiwan's rental market.

Not any more.

Following the Ministry of the Interior's revision of the *Mandatory and Prohibited Provisions for Residential Lease Contracts*, landlords now face an explicit and verifiable cap — and this is not guidance, it is a mandatory provision of the standard contract.

What the provision actually says

Item 6, "Agreement on charges during the lease term", sub-item (3), Electricity:

「□ Where charged by units of electricity consumed, the charge per unit may not exceed the "average price per unit for the current period" shown on the electricity bill for the leased property; where communal facility electricity has not been apportioned into the electricity bill for the leased property through an application to Taiwan Power Company, the lessor may not charge for it separately. □ Where not charged by units of electricity consumed, the total electricity charge collected by the lessor per period may not exceed the total amount of the electricity bill for the leased property for that period.」

Three sentences, three rules.

Rule one: per-unit charging is capped at the current-period average price

Note the wording. It is not "the highest tier rate charged by Taipower" — it is the average price per unit for the current period.

How that figure is derived:

Average price per unit = total bill amount for the period ÷ total units consumed in the period

It appears on the bill, or you can calculate it by dividing the total by the units.

This is a figure the tenant can verify. Given the bill, they can check it. Anything charged above it cannot be collected.

In practice: summer rates are higher, non-summer rates lower, and tiered pricing means the average shifts every period. There is no single "X dollars per unit" that works all year.

Rule two: non-unit charging is capped at the total bill

Some leases say "electricity: NT$500 per month" or apportion it evenly.

In that case the cap is: the total electricity charge collected per period may not exceed the total amount on the electricity bill for the leased property.

Put simply: a landlord may not profit from electricity. At most, you recover what Taipower charged you.

Rule three: communal electricity cannot be charged unless it has been apportioned

This is the one landlords most often get wrong:

「Where communal facility electricity has not been apportioned into the electricity bill for the leased property through an application to Taiwan Power Company, the lessor may not charge for it separately.」

Stairwell lighting, lifts, corridor power — if it has not been apportioned into the leased property's bill via an application to Taipower, the landlord may not pass that cost on to tenants.

Many subdivided-unit landlords habitually split communal power evenly across tenants. Without an apportionment application, there is no basis for doing so.

Why this is actually good news for landlords

It reads as a restriction, but it resolves the landlord's real problem: disputes.

Under the old "five dollars a unit" approach, tenants felt overcharged and landlords felt they were subsidising communal power. Neither side had anything objective to put on the table.

Now there is: the electricity bill.

If your charging method is "calculated at the average price per unit for the current period as shown on the bill", the tenant is welcome to check it — and the argument simply does not start.

A landlord's checklist

• In the contract, is the electricity box ticked as "charged by units consumed" or "not charged by units consumed"?
• If per-unit, is the rate recalculated each period from the bill, rather than fixed year-round?
• Is communal facility electricity included in what you charge? If so, has it been apportioned through Taipower?
• Are the supporting documents (bills, meter readings) retained and available when a tenant asks?
• For subdivided units, how is each room's consumption measured — and how accurate is it?

The last point is the hardest in practice.

Charging correctly requires measuring correctly

The rules are built on units consumed.

Yet many subdivided properties have no reliable way of measuring them — a cheap sub-meter, a monthly manual reading photographed on a phone, or an estimate.

One misreading throws off the whole month's accounts. When a tenant questions the reading, the landlord has nothing to show.

This is precisely the gap smart meters close:

• Readings are transmitted automatically — no site visits, no transcription errors
• Each unit's consumption history is auditable and visible to the tenant
• Readings flow into invoices and are calculated at the current-period average price without manual conversion
• Communal consumption is metered separately, so apportionment decisions rest on actual figures

The regulation requires you to charge according to the bill. The tooling exists to make every unit measurable, calculable and explainable.

Disclaimer

This article summarises the rules in force at the time of writing and is provided for general information only. It does not constitute formal legal advice and is not a substitute for assessment by a qualified lawyer. The mandatory and prohibited provisions are announced by the competent authority and may be amended; please refer to the latest version published by the Ministry of the Interior before signing. Where this translation differs from the Traditional Chinese original, the Chinese version governs.

Sources cited

• Mandatory and Prohibited Provisions for Residential Lease Contracts, Item 6(3) Electricity (announced by the Ministry of the Interior)
• Rental Housing Market Development and Regulation Act, Article 5