City of Johannesburg tariff increases: implications for household budgets and businesses
On 28 May 2026 the City of Johannesburg approved its R97.1 billion 2026/27 budget. The budget raises tariffs for water, electricity, sanitation, refuse removal and property rates from 1 July 2026. The increases are smaller than those imposed in 2025/26.
They land on an already elevated cost base, and they coincide with the removal of national fuel-levy relief. The combined pressure on Johannesburg-based households and businesses exceeds what the tariff percentages alone suggest.
The approved averages are set out below. They show how much each tariff is rising overall, not what any individual household or business will pay. Actual bills depend on consumption, property value, and which rebates or free allocations apply to the account.
Water and sanitation carry the largest percentage increases, at 12.5% and 11% respectively. Electricity is usually the largest component of a household’s municipal bill in rand terms, so it will typically remain the single largest contributor to the increase in absolute terms even at a comparatively lower percentage. Electricity and water tariffs are structured in progressive consumption bands. Households that use more of either service will generally see a larger rand increase than lower-consumption households, even where the same percentage increase applies across all bands.
For businesses, the impact depends on the type of operation. Higher electricity and water charges raise costs directly. They hit hardest where consumption is high: factories, hotels, laundries, cold storage and food producers, shopping centres, data centres, warehouses, and any premises that run on constant refrigeration. Property rates and refuse charges rise regardless of trading volumes, adding to fixed costs either way. Where premises are rented, landlords will often pass these increases on to tenants through operating-cost charges.
Firms selling into Johannesburg should expect softer discretionary demand as households reallocate budget toward municipal bills. Firms supplying Johannesburg-based businesses should weigh counterparty cost pressure where customers run energy- and water-intensive premises in the city.
Businesses will likely respond in one of several ways: raising prices, accepting thinner margins, delaying investment, cutting costs elsewhere, or investing in solar, water efficiency or better metering to reduce future bills.
To show what the tariff increases mean in practice, the CRA built a calculator that estimates a household’s municipal bill before and after 1 July 2026, based on property value, consumption, free allocations, property size and tariff category entered by the user. The calculator can be accessed here.
The calculator is useful for gauging the pressure on customers and employees. It is not a substitute for commercial bill calculation, since its electricity, water, sanitation and refuse categories reflect residential tariff structures rather than commercial ones. Its output is itself an estimate. It applies the approved average 2026/27 increase to the City's published 2025/26 tariff bands, because the City's detailed line-by-line 2026/27 tariff schedule was not publicly available at the time of writing. Actual bills may differ once final tariff lines, fixed charges, subsidies, VAT and any other account-specific charges are included.
The greater risk is the combined effect over a full year. As higher municipal costs work through monthly bills for twelve months, households are likely to cut non-municipal spending by more than the tariff numbers alone suggest, and that squeeze will worsen as fuel prices keep rising. The increases also land in an uncertain period for Johannesburg specifically: the run-up to the 4 November 2026 local government elections, persistent frustration over service delivery, and rising tension over migration and the treatment of foreign nationals are all weighing on confidence. Businesses selling into the local market should plan for demand to soften by more than the tariff figures alone suggest.
The CRA’s view is that the tariff increases are a second-order risk relative to the elections themselves. Councils facing a competitive November poll have less room to enforce collections or cut services to balance budgets, which raises the risk that 2026/27 tariff revenue underperforms the budgeted increases. Johannesburg’s track record on revenue collection and infrastructure maintenance means the risk to businesses is not only higher bills, but continued unreliability in the services those bills are meant to fund.
- Anlu Keeve
