Help Paying Your PG&E Bill in 2026: Assistance Programs, Payment Plans and Discounts

If you are behind on a PG&E bill, start with what PG&E itself offers: a payment plan or a due-date extension of up to 30 days. If you have a disconnection notice and a lower income, PG&E's REACH program can credit up to $800, and LIHEAP, run by local agencies, can pay up to $1,000. CARE and FERA customers far behind can have up to $8,000 forgiven through the Arrearage Management Plan.

If your bill jumped and you are not sure why, start with what to check on a high California bill.

Every program below is from PG&E's own assistance pages and the state agency that runs LIHEAP, checked September 23, 2026. Amounts and rules change, and several programs are first-come, first-served, so apply early rather than waiting for a shutoff date. This page is about paying a bill you already owe; if the bill itself looks wrong or keeps climbing, see why a PG&E bill runs high.

Which PG&E program fits your situation

Payment plans and due-date extensions

These are the fastest options and have no income test. A payment plan breaks the past-due balance into smaller monthly installments, which you pay on top of your regular bill, so you will see two due dates a month. A due-date extension instead promises the full past-due amount on a set date up to 30 days away. Both are set up online under Payment Arrangements.

PG&E's rules are strict. You need active service and a residential account, you cannot already have a payment plan, and you cannot be on automatic payments, Budget Billing or the Arrearage Management Plan. Once set, neither arrangement can be changed, and a plan cannot be switched to an extension or the reverse. Breaking a plan can make you ineligible for the next one and can lead to disconnection. You can pay a plan off early without penalty.

REACH: up to $800 after a disconnection notice

Relief for Energy Assistance through Community Help is PG&E's one-time emergency credit, processed by Dollar Energy Fund. To qualify you must be the main customer on the account, have received a 15-day or 48-hour disconnection notice, have a household income at or below 200% of the federal poverty level, not have received REACH earlier in the same calendar year, and not be enrolled in the Arrearage Management Plan. The credit goes straight onto the past-due bill, first come, first served. PG&E says REACH helped nearly 64,000 customers in 2025.

Apply online through Dollar Energy Fund or by phone at 1-877-660-6789. Because funding runs out, apply as soon as the notice arrives.

LIHEAP: federal help through local agencies

The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program is federal money that California's Department of Community Services and Development (CSD) passes to 31 local agencies. It can make a one-time payment toward heating or cooling bills, help in an energy crisis such as a shutoff, and pay for weatherization. PG&E says LIHEAP can put up to $1,000 toward past-due bills; the amount you get depends on your agency, location and funding. CSD says California received $236.7 million in LIHEAP funding for federal fiscal year 2026.

Find your agency by ZIP code on the CSD website or call the LIHEAP hotline at 1-866-675-6623. This is the answer to “help with my PG&E bill near me”: the agency serving your county handles the application.

Arrearage Management Plan: up to $8,000 forgiven

AMP is for residential customers enrolled in CARE or FERA who owe at least $500 on a combined gas and electric bill, or $250 on gas only, more than 90 days past due. You also need at least six months as a PG&E customer and at least one on-time payment. Each month you pay your current bill on time, PG&E forgives part of the old balance; 12 full on-time payments earn the full forgiveness, up to $8,000. Anything owed above $8,000 is set aside until the plan ends.

You can miss up to two payments that are not in a row, as long as you catch up by the next due date. Two missed payments in a row, or three in total, end the enrollment. Net energy metering customers, master-metered customers and their sub-metered tenants cannot enroll. Sign up in your PG&E account under Assistance Programs or call 1-877-660-6789.

Match My Payment is on hold for 2026

PG&E's Match My Payment program matched payments toward past-due bills dollar for dollar, up to $1,000, for households up to 400% of the federal poverty level. PG&E says it matched more than $25 million in payments, but the program is on hold for 2026 and not accepting new applications. If you read about it elsewhere, check PG&E's page before counting on it.

Discounts that lower every future bill

Help with one past-due bill does not fix the next one. PG&E lists CARE at 35% or more off electricity and 20% or more off gas, and FERA at 18% off, for income-qualified households. The 2026 income limits and steps are in how to qualify and apply for PG&E CARE and FERA. Enrollment in CARE or FERA is also what makes you eligible for the Arrearage Management Plan above.

Medical Baseline is not income-based. If someone in the home depends on power for a qualifying condition or device, such as an oxygen concentrator, CPAP machine or dialysis, PG&E gives roughly 500 kWh of electricity and 25 therms of gas a month at the lowest price on your plan, or a 12% discount on some time-of-use plans, plus extra warnings before a Public Safety Power Shutoff. A doctor must certify the application.

Budget Billing: steadier, not smaller

Budget Billing recalculates your payment every month from a 12-to-13-month rolling average and adds 1/12 of any balance or credit. It smooths out summer and winter spikes but does not reduce what you owe. PG&E requires a history of on-time, complete payments, and customers on a net energy metering plan are not eligible. You can leave it at any time; any remaining balance moves to your next bill.

Checking a PG&E bill before you pay it

A bill that looks wrong or unaffordable is worth checking before you set up a payment plan. These are the questions PG&E customers ask most, answered from PG&E's own tariff rules and account tools.

How often PG&E bills, and why totals move

PG&E bills monthly. Its Electric Rule 9 sets a regular billing period of once each month, with a pro-rata correction when a period runs shorter than 27 days or longer than 33, because meter reads cannot always fall on the same day. A 33-day bill after a 28-day one will look higher with no change in use, so compare kWh per day. If PG&E cannot read the meter, Rule 9 lets it bill an estimate based on your past use; an estimate caused by something within PG&E's control is treated as a billing error.

What changed on PG&E bills in 2026

Three things. On March 1, 2026 PG&E began the income-based Base Services Charge, about $24 a month for most customers, $12 for FERA and deed-restricted affordable housing and $6 for CARE, and cut per-kWh prices to offset it. PG&E says prices were then 13% lower than in January 2024, but whether your total fell depends on your use. And the California Climate Credit moved: in 2026 PG&E electric customers receive $36.18 on the August bill and again on the September bill, instead of the spring and fall credits of past years.

A bill higher than usual

Signed in to your account, PG&E's compare-bills tool puts this month next to last month or the same month last year and shows why the charges changed, with usage by day and hour and next to the weather. If daily use is up, look at heating, cooling, a pool pump or a new EV. If use is flat but charges rose, check the season, your plan's peak hours and whether a credit from last month is missing. The PG&E high-bill checklist goes through each cause.

A projected bill, and estimating your own

PG&E's free Bill Forecast Alert lets you set a limit for the month and warns you by email, text or phone when you are on track to exceed it. It is open to single-location customers with a SmartMeter, but not to net energy metering or Direct Access customers. PG&E's other estimating tool also sits inside your online account: the rate plan comparison prices your own usage on each plan. To estimate by hand, multiply kWh by your plan's price and add the daily Base Services Charge. For example, 400 kWh at E-TOU-C's summer off-peak price of 39.940 cents is $159.76, plus 30 days at $0.79343 is $23.80, about $183.56 before the baseline credit, any peak-hour use and taxes. Every plan's prices are in PG&E's residential rate schedules.

Why a PG&E bill can be negative

A negative balance is a credit, not an error. It happens when you paid more than you owed, or when credits such as the Climate Credit or solar credits exceed that period's charges. The credit carries to your next bill. On a solar true-up statement that ends below zero, PG&E says you can leave the credit on the account for future energy charges or ask for a check if it is more than $1.

If the bill is wrong

Ask PG&E for an explanation first; its Electric Rule 10 says that if a bill is found incorrect, PG&E will issue a corrected bill. When a billing error overcharged you, Rule 17.1 has PG&E refund up to three years of the overcharge; when it undercharged a residential customer, PG&E can back-bill only three months. If you and PG&E cannot agree, you can take the dispute to the CPUC, and a residential customer who cannot pay the disputed amount does not have to deposit it with the CPUC while it reviews the case.

After the emergency: cutting the bill itself

Once the account is current, the question becomes why the bill got that high. Check your rate plan, your daily usage and the hours you use power; our guide to lowering a PG&E bill walks through each lever, and how to read a PG&E bill shows where each charge appears. Solar is a long-term decision, not a fix for a past-due balance, and several assistance programs above are not open to net energy metering customers. When you are ready to look at it, start with PG&E's solar and community solar programs.