Charging an electric car at home is usually the cheapest way to fuel it, but exactly how cheap depends heavily on where you live. Using our Home EV Charging Price Index, we compared the cost of a single full charge of a typical 60 kWh electric car across 36 countries at Q3 2026 average household electricity prices.
The short answer
A full 60 kWh charge ranges from about $1.92 in Qatar to $26.70 in Ireland, a 14x difference for exactly the same amount of energy. Qatar, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia sit at the cheap end thanks to heavily subsidised or low-cost electricity, while Ireland, Italy and Belgium are the most expensive, driven by high household tariffs and energy taxes.
How to read these numbers (this part matters)
Every figure here uses the standard average household electricity price, not a special EV tariff. That is deliberate, because it gives a clean like-for-like comparison across countries. But it is also the worst case for a real EV owner. Most people who charge at home are on a night or dedicated EV tariff, where overnight electricity can cost a quarter to a third of the daytime average. In the UK, for example, a driver on an overnight EV plan might pay closer to $6 to $7 for the same charge that shows as roughly $26 at the flat average. So treat these figures as the no-special-tariff ceiling, and check your own per-kWh rate for the real number.
Cheapest countries to charge an EV at home
- Qatar: about $1.92 per full charge
- Malaysia: among the cheapest, near $0.83 per 100 km of driving
- Saudi Arabia: low regulated tariffs
- Turkey and much of the Gulf: well below the global average
In these markets, charging an EV is almost free compared with petrol, since covering the same distance on fuel can cost five to ten times more.
Most expensive countries to charge an EV at home
- Ireland: about $26.70 per full charge, the highest we measured
- Italy: roughly $25, at about $0.417 per kWh
- Belgium and Germany: both above $24
Even in these countries an EV still beats petrol per kilometre, and a night tariff brings the real cost down sharply.
Why the gap is so large
Two forces drive it. The first is the generation mix: countries with cheap nuclear power (France), abundant solar and wind (Spain and Portugal) or subsidised fossil fuel (the Gulf) have low underlying electricity costs. The second is taxes and grid fees: much of what an Irish or Danish household pays per kWh is tax and network charges rather than the raw cost of the electricity itself. That is also why comparing raw prices across borders is not a like-for-like measure of value, since some of that cost funds public services.
The bottom line
Home charging is cheaper than petrol in every one of the 36 countries we track. Where you live changes the size of the win, and your tariff changes it again. For the full country-by-country table, per-100km and per-year costs, and a free downloadable CSV you can plug your own rate into, see the Home EV Charging Price Index. For the bigger picture, including taxes, insurance and the full five-year cost of running a car, browse all our original research and free tools.
