All-electric homes vs gas connections in Australia

Victoria and the ACT are the only Australian jurisdictions that restrict new gas connections in most new homes. In New South Wales, South Australia, some Queensland gas distribution networks and the ACT (for the small number of connections still permitted), new retail gas customers will generally need to pay cost-reflective connection charges upfront from 1 October 2026.

Australian Government Treasury modelling estimates that switching cooking, space heating and water heating from gas to electricity saves the average household $1,040 a year, including upfront costs.

Across AER Schedule 2 jurisdictions, there were an implied 7.06 million residential electricity accounts and 2.36 million residential gas accounts at 31 March 2026. These are customer-account counts, not home counts, but they show that electricity accounts outnumber reported residential gas accounts by about three to one in the jurisdictions covered.

Victoria's restriction applies in two stages. Homes needing a planning permit went all-electric from 1 January 2024. The rule extends to most new homes and most new commercial buildings from 1 January 2027.

The ACT prevented most new gas network connections from 8 December 2023. This covers residential, commercial and community-facility zones, with limited exemptions.

No other state has banned new gas connections outright. The cost of getting one is changing instead. From 1 October 2026, cost-reflective upfront connection charges apply to new retail gas customers connecting to main gas distribution networks in:

• New South Wales
• South Australia
• The ACT (for the few cases still permitted)
• Some Queensland gas distribution networks

Victoria introduced a similar upfront-payment rule on 1 January 2025. Western Australia has no equivalent upfront-cost rule. Its regulator's AA6 decision covers the Mid-West and South-West gas distribution systems for 2025 to 2029.

Only Victoria and the ACT have jurisdiction-wide restrictions on new gas connections. The other examples are either upfront-cost rules, council-level planning controls or network-specific forecasts.

Savings estimates depend on climate zone, existing appliance age, household size and solar ownership. Source: Australian Government Treasury, Australia's Net Zero Transformation: Treasury Modelling and Analysis, September 2025, for the national $1,040 average saving; Victorian Government, Save with an all-electric home guidance, for the $990–$1,920 savings range; Australian Energy Regulator, Victorian gas distribution access arrangements 2023–28 final decision, June 2023, for the abolishment fee cap and underlying network cost; Essential Services Commission Victoria, Gas Distribution Code of Practice, effective 1 October 2024, for the connection fee rule.

Leaving the network later is a separate cost. Victoria caps the customer-facing abolishment fee at $220. The real cost to the network is closer to $1,200, historically recovered from remaining gas customers.

On 2 April 2026, the Australian Energy Market Commission finalised a national framework requiring customers who permanently abolish a gas connection to pay the cost-reflective charge for that service, rather than sharing the cost across remaining customers.

The framework is being phased in: information requirements for distributors start on 1 October 2026, retailer requirements follow from January 2027, and charging obligations take effect from the start of each network's next access arrangement period.

These figures cover accounts under the National Energy Customer Framework: New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and the ACT, plus Tasmania for electricity only. Victoria and Western Australia report through separate state regulators and aren't included.

How have customer numbers changed since 2020-21?

The snapshot above is a single point in time. The AER's annual series goes back further, and shows how the national totals have moved year by year:

Across the AER Schedule 2 jurisdictions shown, about two-thirds of electricity customer accounts, 66.6%, have no matching residential gas account in the same dataset. That figure comes from subtracting reported gas customer accounts from electricity customer accounts, so it is an implied account-based estimate, not a home-by-home survey.

The gap between electricity and gas customers varies by state

That 66.6% national figure hides a wide spread across states:

Newer gas-connected homes use less gas for heating

In the ACT, only 10% of gas-connected homes that connected in 2022 were still using gas for heating, down from 52% among homes connected before 2005. Victoria shows a smaller shift, from 74% to 59% over a similar period.

Both the ACT and Victoria restrict new gas connections. The fall in gas heating use has not been even between them:

• ACT: 52% to 10%, a change of 42 percentage points
• Victoria: 74% to 59%, a change of 15 percentage points

The larger change in the ACT may reflect differences in the timing of gas connections, housing stock and local electrification settings, but this dataset does not isolate one cause.

Together, these closures affect fewer than 10,000 customers, compared with the 2.36 million residential gas accounts reported in the AER dataset. They are not representative of the whole gas market, but they show how gas network closures can occur in smaller or isolated networks.

The Australian Energy Market Commission has warned that as gas demand declines and customers leave the network, the fixed costs of operating and maintaining it are shared among fewer remaining customers, pushing up their bills.

In South Australia, the Australian Energy Regulator's 2026–31 pricing determination for distributor AGN found declining demand would add about $26 a year to the average residential customer's distribution charges.