Who Pays What: Understanding Utilities in Your Lease

Your lease should say which utilities you pay, whether you pay the utility company directly or pay the landlord, and how any shared bill is divided; if it does not, get those terms in writing before you sign. When a landlord bills you for utilities, charge limits depend on state law and the billing arrangement; California regulates submetered gas and electricity, and Texas regulates water submetering and ratio utility billing (RUBS), a method that splits a building's bill by formula. Whoever pays, a landlord cannot cut off your utilities to force you out: California, Florida, New York, and Texas all bar it and let you recover money.

How to tell which utilities you pay

Find the utilities clause or utility addendum, and match each service to a payer. California's Department of Real Estate (DRE) lists who pays for internet, gas, electric, water, and trash collection as a term your rental agreement should cover, and suggests asking what the previous tenant paid so you can budget rent and utilities together. For each utility, find which of these setups applies:

Some states add rules at this stage:

• New York: before signing a lease that makes you pay your own heating or cooling bills, you can get a complete set or summary of the past two years' bills free by asking in writing.
• Texas: a lease that splits a water bill by formula must describe how the split is calculated and state the average monthly bill for all units over the previous calendar year.
• California: since January 1, 2026, a landlord must let a month-to-month tenant opt out of paying for a third-party internet subscription, such as a bulk-billing plan. If the landlord does not, you can deduct the subscription's cost from your rent (Civil Code section 1942.8).

If you are setting up accounts, see our guide to transferring utilities when you move, and if you share the unit, see whose name utilities should be in with roommates.

How submetering and RUBS work

With submetering, a meter the owner installs measures your unit's use, and you pay for what the meter records. With RUBS, nothing measures your unit, so the building's bill is divided by occupants, square footage, or a mix. Rules for each:

• California gas and electric submeters: a landlord that resells gas or electricity through a master meter (one meter for the whole property) must charge you the same rate the utility would charge you directly, and give you an itemized bill showing opening and closing meter readings (Public Utilities Code section 739.5).
• California generally: when a landlord divides utility costs among units, the DRE says the landlord cannot charge more than the actual cost, and you can ask how the charges are divided; a landlord that bills water through a submeter must also make specific billing disclosures. Because the state utilities commission does not regulate most landlord billing arrangements, the DRE advises putting every part of the arrangement in writing.
• Texas water submeters: the owner can bill only the utility's cost for your water use plus taxes and surcharges, a service charge of up to 9% (not allowed in low-income housing tax credit units or for tenants with Section 8 vouchers), and a late fee of up to 5% of a bill paid late, and must let you inspect its submetering records.
• Texas water RUBS: the owner cannot charge more than the utility actually billed, must keep the bills and its allocation records open for tenants to inspect, and must first remove common-area use. If common areas served through the master meter are not separately metered or submetered and there is an installed irrigation (sprinkler) system, the owner must deduct at least 25% of the bill; with other unmetered common areas and no irrigation system, at least 5%.

Worked example (Texas RUBS). A 150-unit complex gets an $8,000 water and sewer bill with no per-unit base charge, and its common areas, including sprinklers, share the master meter without separate meters or submeters. The owner deducts the minimum 25%, or $2,000, leaving $6,000 to split. If 300 people live in the complex and 2 live in your unit, your share by occupants is $6,000 x 2 / 300 = $40.

In Texas, you can complain to the Public Utility Commission about a water bill from your landlord, and if the commission finds an overcharge, it orders the owner to repay you.

Shared meters

A shared meter is one that measures service to your unit plus an area outside it, such as a hallway, a laundry room, or another apartment. Two states spell out what happens:

• California: under Civil Code section 1940.9, the landlord must tell you about a shared gas or electric meter before you sign or as soon as it finds out, and then either agree with you in writing that you will pay for the outside service or make another written arrangement, such as putting the meter in its own name. If it does not, you can sue for an order putting the account in the landlord's name and repaying what you paid for service outside your unit.
• New York: under Public Service Law section 52, you can complain to your utility, which must investigate and issue a written decision within 30 business days. If it confirms a shared meter, the owner has to fix it or take the shared charges into its own name, the utility refunds or cancels the shared charges on your bills, and the owner cannot pass them back to you.

A clause that makes you pay for common-area utilities is one of several terms worth questioning before you sign; see lease clauses to watch out for.

Why your landlord cannot shut off utilities to force you out

Cutting off water, power, gas, or heat to make you leave is a form of self-help eviction, and state laws make the landlord pay for it:

Texas has one exception: a landlord that submeters or allocates electricity can disconnect it for an unpaid electric bill, but only if your written lease allows it, the bill is still unpaid on the 12th day after it was issued, and the landlord delivers a written termination notice after the bill is past due and at least five days before the interruption date stated in the notice. It cannot disconnect you for unpaid rent, or during freezing weather or a heat advisory. The exception covers electricity only.

If the landlord stops paying a bill it owes. In New York, the utility must give tenants of a multiple dwelling (a building with three or more apartments) advance written notice before cutting service for the landlord's unpaid bills, and service continues if tenants pay the landlord's current bill directly, which they can deduct from future rent. In Texas, if your lease makes the landlord responsible for water, gas, or electricity and the utility cuts service or sends a cutoff notice because the landlord did not pay, you can pay the utility and deduct it from rent by giving the landlord the receipt, or end the lease in writing and move out within 30 days of that notice. In California, the DRE says that when a city-owned utility serves your unit under the landlord's name, you may be able to become the customer of record to keep service on.

For the rest of your lease, see understanding your lease terms.