Near the bottom of the delivery section of every ComEd bill is a line called IL Electricity Distribution Charge. On a home using 1,518 kilowatt hours it was $1.94. It is the smallest delivery line on the bill, it is on every ComEd bill in Illinois, and nothing you do to your account changes it.
This page says what it is, where the rate comes from, and shows the filed rate turning into the printed one on a real bill, to the cent.
What the line is
ComEd's tariff calls it the Illinois Electricity Distribution Tax Charge, IEDT for short. The tariff defines it in one sentence: a charge per kilowatt hour, applicable to the kilowatt hours provided to the retail customer during the monthly billing period, at the rate listed on the Delivery Service Charges informational sheet for the customer's delivery class.
The name is the explanation. It is ComEd's recovery of a State of Illinois tax on distributing electricity, passed through to every customer on every kilowatt hour delivered. The tariff treats it apart from the rest of the delivery charges: the delivery reconciliation rider defines Base Delivery Service Charges as every delivery charge other than the IEDT, and two of the five adjustment factors that apply to the other delivery lines say in their own text that they do not apply to this one.
It sits in the delivery section because ComEd collects it as the distribution company, whoever supplies the energy.
The filed rate, every class, 2025 and 2026
It is one number everywhere. The filed base is $0.00124 per kilowatt hour for every delivery class ComEd has, residential and nonresidential, in the 2025 and 2026 columns, and the sheets already carry the same figure for 2027.
| Delivery class |
2025 base ($/kWh) |
2026 base ($/kWh) |
Filed on |
| Residential, Single Family Without Electric Space Heat |
0.00124 |
0.00124 |
4th Revised Informational Sheet No. 64.1 |
| Residential, Multi Family Without Electric Space Heat |
0.00124 |
0.00124 |
Informational Sheet No. 64.1 |
| Residential, Single Family With Electric Space Heat |
0.00124 |
0.00124 |
Informational Sheet No. 64.1 |
| Residential, Multi Family With Electric Space Heat |
0.00124 |
0.00124 |
Informational Sheet No. 64.1 |
| Watt-Hour |
0.00124 |
0.00124 |
5th Revised Informational Sheet No. 64.3 |
| Small Load (under 100 kW) |
0.00124 |
0.00124 |
Informational Sheet No. 64.3 |
| Medium Load (100 to 400 kW) |
0.00124 |
0.00124 |
Informational Sheet No. 64.3 |
| Large Load |
0.00124 |
0.00124 |
5th Revised Informational Sheet No. 64.5 |
| Very Large Load |
0.00124 |
0.00124 |
Informational Sheet No. 64.5 |
| Extra Large Load |
0.00124 |
0.00124 |
Informational Sheet No. 64.5 |
The residential sheet took effect February 6, 2025 and the nonresidential sheets February 28, 2025, both under the Illinois Commerce Commission's order of January 16, 2025 in Docket 24-0378. The sheets they cancelled, covering 2024, printed $0.00123. So the base moved by one hundred-thousandth of a dollar in the last rate case, and it has not moved since.
That uniformity is unusual on a ComEd bill. The Distribution Facilities Charge base differs by class and by year, the Customer Charge differs by class, and both are revised annually. This line is the same on a studio apartment and a factory.
How $0.00124 becomes $0.00128 on the bill
Every base rate on the delivery sheets is printed with "& ADJ" beside it, and the bill never shows the base. The adjustment is defined once, for every delivery line, on Informational Sheet No. 64.17. For this line it reads:
IEDT & ADJ = IEDT x (IDUF + RBAFD)
That is two factors, not five. The Customer Charge, the Standard Metering Charge and the Distribution Facilities Charge are multiplied by the sum of five factors; this line takes only the uncollectible factor and the revenue balancing factor. That is why the distribution tax line on a bill runs about three percent above its base while the Customer Charge runs about ten percent above its own.
For a Single Family Without Electric Space Heat home in the June 2026 billing period, the two factors are:
| Factor |
What it is |
Value |
Filed on |
| IDUF |
Incremental distribution uncollectible factor, residential |
1.0206 |
57th Revised Informational Sheet No. 20 |
| RBAFD |
Revenue balancing adjustment, this class, 2026 |
0.007668 |
9th Revised Informational Sheet No. 18 |
They sum to 1.028268. Multiply the base by that:
$0.00124 x 1.028268 = $0.0012751, which ComEd prints at five places as $0.00128
That is the rate on the bill.
Checked against a real bill
The reference bill is a single family home without electric heat, 1,518 kilowatt hours, May 1 to June 2, 2026, billed in the June 2026 period. It printed the line as 1,518 kWh at $0.00128, for $1.94.
| Step |
Figure |
| Filed base, Sheet No. 64.1, 2026 column |
$0.00124 per kWh |
| Times (IDUF 1.0206 + RBAFD 0.007668) |
$0.00128 per kWh |
| Times 1,518 kWh |
$1.943, printed $1.94 |
It reconciles to the cent, from the filed sheets forward, without reading the rate off the bill. That is the same result the free bill reader reports for this line on any residential bill whose class it can identify, and it is why the reading calls this line reconciled to the filed tariff rather than merely re-added.
The Customer Charge on the same bill does not close by eleven cents, which is worth knowing when you see the two side by side: the factors are right, because this line and the metering charge both land on the cent with them.
What it costs
At the printed 2026 rate, the line is $1.28 for every 1,000 kilowatt hours. A home at 1,518 kWh paid $1.94; a home at 3,000 kWh would pay $3.84; a business drawing 18,000 kWh in a month at the same printed rate would pay $23.04. On the reference bill it was 0.7 percent of the total.
It scales with energy only. There is no fixed component, no demand component and no tier.
Can it be avoided?
No. It is a delivery service charge in every delivery class's filed schedule, and it is applied to every kilowatt hour delivered. Switching to a retail electric supplier changes the supply half of the bill and leaves this line exactly where it was, because ComEd delivers the energy either way. Solar reduces it only in proportion to the kilowatt hours it stops you drawing from the grid, at $0.00128 each, which is $1.28 for every 1,000 kilowatt hours an array displaces.
The only thing that moves it is the two factors, which ComEd refiles on their own schedules, and the base, which changes in a rate case.
What this page was checked against
The base rates are quoted from ComEd's filed Delivery Service Charges informational sheets (Nos. 64.1, 64.3 and 64.5), current through the August 2026 billing period. The adjustment formula is quoted from Informational Sheet No. 64.17. The two factor values are the filed June 2026 values for the Residential Single Family Without Electric Space Heat class. The printed figures are from one real bill, and the filed figures reproduce them to the cent.
The rest of the delivery section is covered by the Distribution Facilities Charge, the largest delivery line on almost every bill, and the Customer Charge. The rider block beneath them is in every line on a ComEd bill, explained. The taxes that follow the riders, which are also per kilowatt hour and also not printed with a rate, are in State Tax and Municipal Utility Tax on a ComEd bill.
