Shared meter split calculator

Why there is no markup option on this tool

Because adding one would be helping you commit an offence, and we would rather explain that than quietly leave the field out.

Under the Electricity Act, selling electricity requires a sale licence from the Electricity Regulatory Authority. Section 61 makes it an offence to sell electricity to any premises without one, and the penalty under section 81(6) is a fine of up to UGX 4,000,000, plus a further UGX 100,000 for every day the offence continues after conviction. The only exemption the Act provides is for rural electrification schemes under two megawatts, which is not a landlord with a few units behind one meter.

The moment you charge a tenant more than the electricity actually cost, you are not recovering a cost. You are selling power at a margin, and that is the thing that needs a licence. It does not matter whether you call it an administration fee, a meter-reading charge or a service charge on the units.

So this tool does one thing: it takes a bill you have already paid and divides exactly that amount. The shares always add up to the bill and never to more, which is enforced in the arithmetic itself rather than left to good intentions.

Who is liable for the bill in the first place

The Landlord and Tenant Act 2022 draws a hard line at the meter. Under section 12, a tenant is liable for electricity, gas, oil and similar services for premises that are separately metered, though not for the cost of the initial connection. Under section 13, the landlord is liable for those charges where the premises are not separately metered.

Read those together and the position is uncomfortable for shared meters: where a tenant’s unit is not separately metered, the Act puts the electricity charge on the landlord. The Act lets a landlord voluntarily take on liabilities that would otherwise be the tenant’s; it does not contain a matching provision letting a landlord push section 13 liabilities back onto a tenant. The only contribution it contemplates in the landlord’s direction is for sewerage disposal.

The model tenancy agreement in the Act’s own Schedule does have the tenant covenanting to pay electricity charges, which looks like it says the opposite. It is a specimen form. Sections 12 and 13 are the operative law, and a specimen form does not override them.

The clean answer is a meter per unit

Separate metering is the arrangement the Act is written around. Each tenant buys their own Yaka, each tenant is liable for what they use, nobody is apportioning anything, and no question of selling electricity arises. It costs something to install and it ends the argument permanently. If you are building or refurbishing, do this.

Sub-metering behind one utility meter is a grey area at best. This calculator exists because plenty of Ugandan rentals are already built that way and the bill still has to be divided somehow, not because it is the right structure.

Choosing a basis to divide by

Sub-meter readings

The fairest basis, and the only one that reflects what each unit actually used. Take this month’s reading less last month’s for each sub-meter and enter the difference. Everyone can check their own number against their own meter, which is what stops the argument.

Number of people

A reasonable proxy where there are no sub-meters. It tracks consumption loosely, since more people means more lights, more phone charging and more cooking. But it will overcharge a family that is out all day and undercharge someone running a fridge and a water heater alone.

Equal shares

The simplest, and defensible where the units are identical and similarly occupied. It becomes unfair fast when one unit is a shop with a freezer and the others are single rooms.

Whichever you choose, agree it in writing before the first bill, not after one arrives that somebody thinks is too high. The basis is the thing tenants dispute, far more often than the arithmetic.

Making the split hold up

Show the bill. If tenants can see the amount you actually paid and the readings you used, the split explains itself and there is nothing to accuse anyone of. Keep the token receipts and a note of each month’s readings. That record is what protects you if the arrangement is ever questioned.

Rounding leaves a shilling or two that will not divide cleanly. This tool hands those odd shillings to the largest shares first, so the total lands exactly on the bill rather than a shilling over it. Over a shilling, nobody minds. Over the principle, they do.

This is a reading of the legislation, not legal advice, and the electricity licensing position in particular is worth putting to a Ugandan advocate before you rely on it in a tenancy agreement.

Working out what the units behind one sub-meter should cost first? Use the Yaka units calculator. Splitting a water bill instead of an electricity one works the same way, so see the water bill checker.