The honest answer: anchor to your own electricity rate — everything else follows from there.
Last reviewed 6 July 2026 · ~8 minute read
The short version: an overnight top-up costs you roughly £8 / US$5 / C$6 / A$10 in electricity. Guests know that public charging costs two to four times home rates, so recovering your cost — or your cost plus a modest margin — reads as fair, not stingy. Charge per kWh if you want precision (check your meter is approved for billing first), or a flat fee per stay if you want simplicity and zero meter-compliance questions. Free-for-everyone is a marketing choice, not a default — decide it deliberately.
Step 1: know what a guest’s charging actually costs you
Most guests arriving by EV don’t need a full battery — they need to leave with more than they came with. A typical overnight plug-in takes 20–40 kWh (a 7 kW charger delivers about 30 kWh in just over four hours; most cars finish long before breakfast). At mid-2026 residential rates, that looks like this:
| Country | Typical home rate (mid-2026) | 30 kWh overnight top-up costs you |
|---|---|---|
| 🇬🇧 UK | ~26p/kWh (Ofgem cap, Jul–Sep 2026) | ~£7.80 |
| 🇺🇸 US | ~17.5¢/kWh (national average) | ~$5.25 |
| 🇨🇦 Canada | ~C$0.185/kWh (national average; varies widely by province) | ~C$5.55 |
| 🇦🇺 Australia | ~32c/kWh (varies by state) | ~A$9.60 |
Rates move — check your own bill for the number that matters. Your per-kWh unit rate is on every statement.
Two useful reference points for context: public rapid charging typically costs 2–4× home rates (UK rapid networks commonly charge 70–85p/kWh), and a tank of petrol for the equivalent distance costs more still. Your guests know both of these things. A host recovering roughly their own rate is being transparent, not tight.
Step 2: pick one of the two models
Per kWh — precise and fair
The guest pays for exactly the energy they take: light users pay little, the guest who arrives at 5% and leaves at 100% pays their share. It’s the model that scales best if you host a lot of EV drivers.
⚠️ One precondition: billing by measured kWh makes your charger’s meter a trade-measurement instrument in most countries — it needs to be an approved design (MID Class B in the UK, NTEP/CTEP in most US states, and so on). We’ve written a full country-by-country guide: Can you legally bill guests for EV charging? If your charger’s meter isn’t approved, a certified sub-meter usually fixes it cheaply — or use the flat-fee model below, which has no meter requirement anywhere.
Setting the rate: start from your unit rate. Adding a modest service margin is commercially reasonable in most places — you’re providing hardware, parking, and convenience — but two notes: in Great Britain, Ofgem’s resale-price rules currently exclude EV charging from the at-cost cap, though that exclusion is under review (details in the compliance guide), and everywhere, a rate at or near what the guest would pay at home simply feels right and earns reviews. Rounding up aggressively toward public-rapid pricing at a property where the car sits overnight tends to read as a grab.
Flat fee per stay — simple and compliance-free
One price covers charging for the whole stay: “EV charging: £15 per stay.” No approved meter needed (no measurement determines the price), no rate disputes, and the guest knows the total before they book. The trade-off is bluntness — a guest who tops up once subsidises the one who charges nightly. Price it against your expected usage: for a 2–3 night stay, one-and-a-bit overnight charges is typical, so £10–£20 / US$8–$15 / A$15–$25 lands about right for most properties. If your stays are long or your guests drive a lot, lean higher or switch to per-kWh.
💡 Why a minimum charge matters (per-kWh model): card processing has fixed costs, and a guest who takes 1 kWh would otherwise generate a payment smaller than the fee to collect it. A small minimum per stay (we default to the card processor’s floor, around $0.50) keeps micro-sessions from costing you money. Whatever minimum you set, disclose it up front — guests object to surprises, not minimums.
What about giving it away free?
Free charging is a legitimate strategy — it’s a marketing amenity, like the welcome bottle of wine, and it removes all billing questions. But make it a decision, not a default: at A$9.60 a night it’s real money across a season, and “free” also invites the heaviest usage. Many hosts land on a hybrid: charging included for stays above a certain length or rate tier, billed otherwise. If you do bill, even a nominal amount, usage self-moderates noticeably.
⚠️ Free is a price, not an access policy. An always-on charger doesn’t know the difference between your current guest, last month’s guest who remembers where it is, a neighbour, or a passing EV driver who spotted it from the road. “Free for my guests” only means something if the charger is only live for your guests.
This is why free charging is still a reason to manage the charger, not a reason to skip it. With Guest Charge (payments simply switched off for the booking):
- Scheduled sessions turn the charger on at check-in and off at check-out automatically — outside a booking it’s inoperative, so “free” extends exactly as far as your guest list and no further.
- Guest URL sessions give precise control when you want it: the charger only activates when this booking’s guest taps their unique link, and you see who charged, when, and how much energy every time.
- Time-boxing lets you set the hours a session runs — for example an overnight window while your tariff is off-peak, so the free amenity draws the cheapest electricity you buy.
- Per-session energy records mean you always know what “free” is actually costing you — which is exactly the number you’ll want when deciding each season whether free still makes sense.
Taxes, briefly
Tax treatment differs by country and by how you bill (bundled into accommodation vs itemised). If you’re VAT/GST-registered, your accountant should confirm the treatment for itemised electricity — don’t guess it from a blog post, including this one.
How Guest Charge handles both models
Set a flat price per stay or a rate per kWh per booking — guests see the exact price (and any minimum) on their charging page before a card is ever charged, pay through hosted Stripe checkout, and per-kWh stays settle automatically from the charger’s own OCPP energy data when they depart. You get a session-by-session audit trail; they get no surprises.
Sources
- Ofgem — energy price cap, July–September 2026
- GlobalPetrolPrices — household electricity prices by country
- Ofgem — Reselling Gas and Electricity: call for input (October 2025)
General information, not legal or tax advice. Rates quoted were checked 6 July 2026 and will drift — use your own bill.