How do I switch electricity providers in Queensland?

The steps

1. Find the plan. Compare every plan on your own usage, not on a typical home, and check the plan name and the plan id before you sign up, because retailers' websites do not always list the plan the regulator's data does.
2. Have a bill handy. The new retailer needs your address and your NMI, the ten- or eleven-character National Metering Identifier on the first page of the bill; finding your NMI shows where. They also need a name, a contact and, usually, a date of birth for identification.
3. Sign up. Online or by phone, with the retailer directly. The retailer must give you the contract's details in writing, and that is the day your cooling-off period starts.
4. Do nothing else. The new retailer tells the market operator, the transfer happens, and your old retailer is told. You do not contact the old one.
5. Check the first bill. It should show the plan you chose at the rates you were quoted, from the transfer date. Keep the old retailer's final bill for the meter reading the switch was made on.

What does not happen

• Your power is not cut off, not even for a moment. The wires, the meter and the supply belong to Energex whichever retailer you pay.
• Nobody visits. A switch is paperwork between retailers and the market operator.
• Your meter is not replaced, unless you choose a plan that needs a smart meter and you have a basic one, in which case the new retailer arranges the upgrade.
• Most residential market offers in Queensland carry no exit fee. Where a plan does, the regulator's plan data lists it and our check counts it; a fixed-rate plan is the most likely to carry one, so read its terms.

How long it takes

The market rules were changed in 2021 so that a switch no longer waits for the next meter read: a transfer can now complete within a couple of business days of the retailer receiving your request, though a retailer may schedule it after the cooling-off period. The old retailer then issues a final bill to the transfer date.

The cooling-off period

Under rule 47 of the National Energy Retail Rules you have ten business days from the day you receive the contract's details to cancel a new market contract for any reason and at no cost, by telling the retailer. If the transfer has already happened, you can still cancel; you may be placed on the retailer's standing offer while you choose again.

Things worth checking before you sign

• Whether the plan is priced on the tariff your meter is on. A time-of-use or demand plan needs a smart meter, and some retailers will only sell one to a home already on that network tariff.
• The benefit period, if any, and what the rates revert to when it ends.
• Whether a discount is conditional on paying on time or by direct debit, and what the plan costs if you miss the condition once. Are pay-on-time discounts worth it?
• That the plan has a rate for your controlled load and, if you have solar, a feed-in tariff you have actually compared.
• The plan id. Quote it with the plan name if the retailer's site does not list the plan; both are on the plan's page on Energy Made Easy.