We took apart a real municipal bill line by line. Here is where your money goes

R4,231.80.

That is what an ordinary house worth R2 million in Cape Town pays the City every month from July 2026. That is R50,781 a year, just to keep the lights, taps and bins working.

We did not guess any of it. We took the City's approved 2026/27 tariff notice and built the bill line by line, the way the City's own computer does. Then we asked why it keeps rising faster than prices in the shops.

What is on a municipal bill in South Africa?

Every metro bill has the same five parts. Property rates pay for the city in general. Electricity, water, sanitation and refuse pay for the services you use.

Our house is a typical example, not a real account. Here is what we assumed.

• Market value of R2 million on the City's new 2025 valuation roll
• 500 kWh of electricity a month, on the Home User tariff
• 15 kilolitres of water a month (15,000 litres) through a 20mm meter
• One 240-litre wheelie bin, collected weekly

52%19%15%

Electricity	R2,204.05	52%
Property rates	R814.91	19%
Water	R654.54	15%
Sanitation	R345.30	8%
Refuse	R213.00	5%
Monthly bill	R4,231.80	100%

The Big Fuss calculation from the City of Cape Town 2026/27 approved tariffs (incl. VAT). Assumes 500 kWh, 15 kl water, 20mm meter, primary residence.

How is my municipal bill calculated?

Here is every line, with the City's own prices.

Rates carry no VAT. Every service line includes 15% VAT.

Look at the four fixed lines plus rates. Together they come to R1,612.42 a month. That is 38% of the bill, charged before anyone in the house boils a kettle or flushes a toilet.

Photo: Mike Peel / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Why is electricity so expensive in Cape Town?

Electricity is 52% of this bill. The biggest surprise is the R424.30 service charge.

Under the 2026/27 tariffs, any Cape Town home worth more than R1 million pays the Home User tariff, prepaid meter or not. Homes worth R500,000 to R1 million on prepaid meters pay the Domestic tariff, with a daily charge of R2.46. Homes worth R500,000 or less on prepaid meters qualify for Lifeline, with no fixed charge.

The fixed charge hurts small users most. A pensioner in a R2 million house who uses only 200 kWh pays R1,136.20. That works out to R5.68 for every unit, far more than the R4.41 our 500 kWh family pays.

There is a hidden line inside every unit too. The tariff includes 11.45c a kWh, before VAT, that the City says funds street lighting. For our house that is about R66 a month.

Why do municipal bills go up more than inflation?

Prices in the shops rose 4.3% in the year to July 2026, Stats SA says. The same survey found electricity tariffs up 8.1% and water tariffs up 10.2%.

4.30%Inflation

CT water

CT electricity

Joburg electricity

Eskom to councils

Joburg water

See the numbers

Inflation	4.30%
CT water	4.50%
CT electricity	5.83%
Joburg electricity	8.60%
Eskom to councils	9.01%
Joburg water	11.00%

Inflation: Stats SA CPI, July 2026. Cape Town (CT) averages from the City's approved tariff notice. Joburg from the City's 2026/27 budget (water and sanitation combined). Eskom bulk increase from Nersa's 5 March 2026 decision.

Some of it starts far from your street. Nersa allowed Eskom to raise its bulk price to municipalities by 9.01% from 1 July. Nersa approved higher increases for 2026/27 after it found a R54.7 billion error in its own earlier decision.

Johannesburg's water bills follow Rand Water's 11% bulk increase. Joburg's finance MMC Loyiso Masuku blamed "administered input cost increases from Eskom and Rand Water that are largely outside the city's control."

Cape Town's average electricity increase of 5.83% was lower than Eskom's. Its water increase of 4.5% was close to inflation. But averages hide a lot. A court case shuffled who pays what, and some homes now pay far more than the average.

What did the court say about Cape Town's fixed charges?

In July 2025 the City started charging fixed water, sanitation and cleaning fees based on bands of property value. Property owners' group SAPOA and AfriForum went to court.

On 30 April 2026 the Western Cape High Court declared the charges unconstitutional and set them aside from 30 June 2026. The judges said the City had "moved into the realm of property rates" without following the rules for rates. The City argued the charges were lawful service fees.

So the City rebuilt the budget. Fixed water charges went back to meter size. Because less money comes from fixed fees, the City's notice says, heavy water users pay more per kilolitre. Above 35 kl a month, water now costs R109.98 a kilolitre.

Photo: Olga Ernst / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Where does the money really go?

Your bill pays for the service and for the system behind it. The national picture of that system is not pretty.

Municipalities owed Eskom R120.26 billion at the end of July 2026, up from R111.6 billion in March, according to figures reported by TimesLive. Eskom projects R358 billion by 2031 without a fix. Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa called municipal debt "the single greatest threat to Eskom's financial sustainability."

Residents who pay end up carrying those who do not. Johannesburg's budget assumes it will collect only 86% of what it bills, down from 88.6%.

What did the Auditor-General find in municipalities?

Auditor-General Tsakani Maluleke tabled the 2024-25 local government results in June 2026. Only 39 of 257 municipalities got a clean audit. Those 39 spent R52.6 billion, about 8% of all municipal spending.

Municipalities ran up R40 billion in irregular expenditure in 2024-25, R23 billion of it in the metros. Irregular means the money was spent without following the law or procurement rules. It does not automatically mean it was stolen.

Fruitless and wasteful spending came to R6.36 billion. The AG says 83% of that was interest and penalties for paying suppliers late. That is money paid for nothing.

"Of all the categories of municipalities, metros are going backwards," the AG said. Johannesburg received a qualified audit opinion, the Citizen reported.

Photo: SuSanA Secretariat / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

How much water do municipalities lose?

Almost half. The Department of Water and Sanitation's No Drop report puts non-revenue water at 47.3%. That is water that is treated and pumped, then lost to leaks, illegal connections or broken meters, or simply never billed.

It adds up to more than 2.1 billion kilolitres a year, worth about R26 billion. Every one of those litres was paid for by somebody. Usually it is the household that does pay.

What we know and what we don't

What we know:

• The tariffs above are the City of Cape Town's approved 2026/27 prices, approved for electricity by Nersa on 11 May 2026.
• Fixed charges and rates make up 38% of our example bill.
• Eskom's bulk price, municipal debt, irregular spending and water losses are official figures.

What we don't know:

• How much of each municipality's electricity income pays for other services. The City publishes the street lighting part, but no metro shows the full surplus on your bill.
• How much of the R40 billion in irregular spending was actually lost. The AG said at least 40% of municipalities under-reported it, the Citizen reported.
• What your own bill looks like. Your value, meter and use change everything.

What can I do about a high municipal bill?

You have more power than the bill suggests.

Check the reading. Compare the meter reading on your bill with your own meter. Estimated readings are a common cause of shock bills.

Query it in writing. In Cape Town call 0860 103 089 or log a query online, and keep the reference number. Under section 102 of the Municipal Systems Act, the City may not cut your services over a specific amount you have properly disputed. Keep paying the undisputed part.

Check your tariff. If your home is worth less than R1 million and you have a prepaid meter, make sure you are not on Home User. If you are a pensioner earning under R27,000 a month, apply for the rates rebate.

Check your valuation. Cape Town's objection window for the new roll closed on 30 April, but you can still ask the City to review an obvious error. Every rand of value above R605,000 costs you rates.

Have your say before July. Every municipality must table its draft budget by the end of March and then invite public comment, usually in April. That is when the tariffs on this page were set, and it is the moment residents can change them. If a debit order for your bill ever pushes your account into the red, our guide to why a bank account goes negative explains your rights.

We did the same thing with a litre of fuel and found that R12.81 of a R30.25 litre isn't petrol at all. Your municipal bill is bigger than a tank of petrol every month. On 4 November, the people who set every tariff on it are on the ballot.