If the bill has your name on it, the choice is yours
The most common myth in rented housing is that your landlord or agent decides your energy retailer. In the ordinary case they do not. If the electricity account is in your name and you are the one paying the retailer, you are the customer, and choosing your retailer is your decision — not something you need permission for, and not something that requires the landlord to be consulted.
Switching retailers is a commercial change, not a physical one. Nobody visits, no wiring is touched, and the meter stays exactly where it is. Your existing retailer stops billing you and the new one starts. Because nothing physical changes, there is generally nothing in a standard residential tenancy that a retailer switch breaches.
Two practical caveats. If you are on a fixed-term energy contract, check whether an exit fee applies before you move. And if you are close to the end of your lease, weigh whether the switch is worth it for the remaining period. Our renters energy savings guide covers the rest of what renters can and cannot control.
When you genuinely cannot switch: embedded networks
There is a real exception, and it catches a lot of apartment dwellers, retirement village residents and caravan park tenants. In an embedded network, the whole site sits behind a single connection to the grid — the "parent" meter — and the building owner or an operator on-sells electricity to each dwelling, measured by an individual sub-meter, sometimes called a child meter.
In that arrangement your billing relationship is with the network operator or building owner rather than directly with a retailer, and the practical ability to switch is limited. You generally retain a right to request supply from an outside retailer, but exercising it can require a meter change and, critically, a retailer willing to take you on — and many will not service a single dwelling inside an embedded network. The right exists; the market does not always meet it.
What you do not lose is your consumer protections. Embedded network sellers typically operate under an exemption rather than a full retail authorisation, but they must hold a valid exemption and follow conditions designed to protect you: you keep price protection referenced to the relevant default offer, you keep access to your state energy ombudsman, and the rules around disconnection and hardship still apply. Living behind a shared meter does not put you outside the consumer framework. Our embedded networks explained guide goes into how to identify one and what to do about it.
How to tell which situation you are actually in
The quickest test is the bill itself. If your bill comes from a licensed energy retailer, carries a National Metering Identifier (NMI) and shows network charges from your local distributor, you are a normal retail customer and you can switch. If your bill comes from the body corporate, the building manager, a strata manager or a company you have never heard of, and there is no NMI, you are probably in an embedded network.
A second signal is what happens when you try. Enter your address into a comparison service and, if no retailer can serve the address, that is often an embedded network rather than a fault. A third is the meter itself: a single large meter for the whole building with small sub-meters per dwelling is the physical signature.
If you are unsure how to read what is on your meter, our guide to reading your electricity meter explains the display types and what each reading means.
Shared meters between dwellings: the messy middle case
The hardest situation is neither a clean retail connection nor a formal embedded network: two dwellings genuinely sharing one meter. This is common where a granny flat, studio or converted garage was added to an existing property without a separate connection being installed. Everything behind that meter appears on one bill, and there is no metered basis for splitting it.
The options are all imperfect. You can install a separate connection and meter for the second dwelling, which is the clean fix and the expensive one, and which usually requires the property owner to initiate it. You can install a private check meter to measure the second dwelling and apportion the bill by actual usage, which has no legal billing status but is far fairer than guessing. Or you can agree a fixed split, which is simple and reliably becomes a source of friction the first time someone buys a heater.
If this is your situation, our granny flat electricity metering guide walks through each option, what it costs and who has to authorise it. If you are a landlord rather than a tenant, landlord vs tenant energy costs sets out who is responsible for what.
Moving in, moving out, and not paying for someone else
When you move into a rental, set up the account in your name from your move-in date and take a meter reading that day if you can. This is the single most effective protection against inheriting a previous tenant’s usage, and it takes two minutes. Do the same on the way out. Photograph the meter with a timestamp.
If you arrive and find the property still connected under someone else’s account, contact a retailer and open your own account rather than quietly using the supply — an unexplained handover is how disputed bills start. Our moving house electricity connection guide covers the sequence and the timing.
Once the account is genuinely yours, the comparison is worth doing properly: renters change address more often than owners, and each move is a chance to land on a default plan that nobody ever re-checked. Compare the whole market on your actual usage, or estimate first with the free electricity bill estimator. If you want to know what is driving the bill before you switch, the appliance running-cost calculator prices the things you actually run.
Frequently asked questions
Can I switch electricity plans if I am renting?
Yes, in the ordinary case. If the account is in your name you are the customer and the choice is yours — your landlord does not need to approve it. Switching is a commercial change only: no wiring is touched and the meter does not move. Check for an exit fee if you are on a fixed-term contract.
Does my landlord need to approve an energy retailer switch?
No, not where the account is in your name and nothing physical changes. A switch does not alter the meter or the wiring. The exception is where the property sits in an embedded network, in which case the supply arrangement itself limits your options regardless of anyone’s approval.
How do I know if my apartment is in an embedded network?
Check who issues your bill. A bill from a licensed retailer showing a NMI and your distributor’s network charges means a normal connection. A bill from the body corporate, building manager or an unfamiliar operator, with no NMI, usually means an embedded network — as does a comparison service telling you no retailer can serve your address.
Do I lose consumer protections in an embedded network?
No. Sellers in embedded networks generally operate under an exemption rather than a full retail authorisation, but they must hold a valid exemption and meet conditions that preserve your core protections: price protection referenced to the relevant default offer, access to your state energy ombudsman, and the rules covering disconnection and hardship.
My granny flat shares a meter with the main house. How do we split the bill?
There is no metered basis to split it, so you choose between installing a separate connection and meter (clean, expensive, owner-initiated), fitting a private check meter and apportioning by measured usage (fairer, no legal billing status), or agreeing a fixed split (simple, and a common source of disputes). See granny flat electricity metering.
How do I avoid paying for the previous tenant’s electricity?
Open the account in your own name effective from your move-in date, and take and photograph a meter reading that day. Do the same when you leave. A dated reading at each end of the tenancy is the simplest evidence there is if a bill is ever disputed.