Energy debt-related costs data: October 2018 to March 2026

Main points

• Between July 2022 and December 2023 total debt-related costs per three-month period (quarter) increased from £137 million to £575 million, reflecting the impact of the gas crisis.
• This increase was mainly due to changes in the level of bad debt charge, which is the largest part of total debt-related costs.
• In comparison, quarterly debt administration costs increased more gradually, rising from £32 million to £64 million over the same period.
• Since 2024 bad debt charge costs have gone up and down with seasonal energy consumption, for example between January to March 2024 and July to September 2024 bad debt charge costs fell by £220 million before increasing by £260 million by January to March 2025.  
• The 12-month average of quarterly total debt-related costs has remained around £400 million over the last year and a half of data available. 

Methodology

Data has been collected from energy suppliers with at least 100,000 customers who are on a standard variable tariff, where the maximum unit rate and standing charge are set by the energy price cap. 

The data includes two types of energy debt-related costs, these are:

• Bad debt charge; this is the change in the amount of unpaid bills a supplier does not expect to recover, also known as bad debt provisioning, plus any debts newly confirmed as unrecoverable and therefore written off.
• Debt administration costs; these include costs such as legal or warrant costs, costs of non-warrant field visits, other communication costs, setting up payment plans, debt collection agencies, credit delivery costs and costs recharged to customers.