Many LESCO customers want to estimate their bill before it arrives. The amount mostly comes down to one thing: how many units (kilowatt-hours) you used, charged through NEPRA's slab system. This guide explains how the slabs work and walks through a worked example.
How NEPRA's slab tariff works
Electricity tariffs in Pakistan are set by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA), not by LESCO. LESCO reads your meter and applies the notified schedule — currently S.R.O. 279(I)/2026 of 12 February 2026. The full band-by-band schedule, the fixed charges and any adjustment currently in force are on our tariff page; the two figures this calculation needs are quoted below.
The rule that makes bills jump
Domestic billing is not telescopic. Per the notes to the notified schedule, “only protected residential consumers will be given the benefit of one previous slab”, and lifeline consumers get no slab benefit at all. So for an unprotected consumer, every unit is charged at the rate of the slab you reach.
This is the single most useful thing to understand about a Pakistani electricity bill, because it means the cost of crossing a boundary is not the cost of the extra units — it is the cost of repricing the entire month.
A worked example: 200 units versus 201
Take an unprotected LESCO household. At exactly 200 units, the whole month is charged in the 101–200 band:
- 200 units × Rs 28.91 = Rs 5,782
Now the same household uses 201 units. The month moves into the 201–300 band, and all 201 units reprice:
- 201 units × Rs 33.10 = Rs 6,653
One extra unit added about Rs 871 to the energy charge — and GST is calculated on top of that, so the real difference on the bill is larger. This is why watching your meter in the last few days of a billing cycle genuinely pays.
What a protected consumer pays instead
A protected consumer keeps the benefit of one previous slab, so 200 units is charged as 100 × Rs 10.54 plus 100 × Rs 13.01 = Rs 2,355. The gap between protected and unprotected at the same consumption is enormous, which is why protected status is worth guarding.
Then come the surcharges and taxes
The energy charge is only part of the bill. On top of it LESCO adds a fixed charge based on your sanctioned load (Rs 275–675 per kW per month depending on your band), the monthly fuel price adjustment, any quarterly tariff adjustment in force, electricity duty, GST, the PTV licence fee and meter rent. Our annotated sample bill walks through every one of them.
See your exact LESCO bill
Estimates are useful, but the real figure is always on your bill. To see your actual units, charges and total, check your LESCO bill online with your 14-digit reference number, free and in seconds.