How do I switch business electricity providers in New Zealand?

As at October 2026, switching business electricity providers in New Zealand is a transfer between two retailers, run through the Electricity Authority's electricity registry. You sign with the new retailer; it lodges a switch against each of your ICPs; your old retailer confirms the handover date and supplies a final meter reading. The Authority's own advice is that once you have chosen a power company, it arranges the transfer, and on average the switch takes 3 to 4 days.

Your lines company, meter and supply stay as they are; the real work comes before you sign.

What actually happens when a business switches electricity retailer?

The Authority's electricity registry records which retailer is responsible for each ICP. It holds around two million ICPs and, in the Authority's words, "supports hundreds of thousands of consumers switching electricity retailers every year". A switch is a change to that record.

Schedule 11.3 of the Electricity Industry Participation Code sets a time limit on every step of the standard switch process. The retailer you are joining is the "gaining trader"; the one you are leaving is the "losing trader".

Source: Code Schedule 11.3, clauses 2 to 5, 17 and 18. A site on a category 3 or higher half-hour meter follows the gaining trader process instead, with 3-business-day limits to lodge, respond and complete.

The Authority's monthly data shows how often this runs: 440,194 switches were started in the 12 months to September 2026, a 12-month switch rate of 18.65%, and 36,001 in September 2026 alone, 1.52% of 2,373,731 connections. The figures cover every ICP, business and household, and exclude switches later withdrawn.

What should you check before you sign with a new retailer?

Four things, all from your own paperwork and data rather than from the new retailer.

1. Your contract's end date, notice period and exit fee. The Authority's advice is that on a fixed-term contract "there may be a break fee to switch before the fixed term ends", so check the terms and conditions. Our contract renewal checklist covers the clauses to read.
2. Your ICP details for every site. The ICP decides your network, your lines price category and your metering category. What an ICP number is explains how to find and read yours.
3. Your meter. The Authority notes that you "may need a smart meter to switch to a new plan or power company", because time-of-use plans need half-hourly data, and that installing one may carry a cost; its "Your meter" lookup shows what you have. Since 1 October 2026, a retailer with 5% or more of the country's ICPs must offer its residential and small business consumer customers with smart meters at least one time-varying pricing plan (Code clause 11A.12).
4. Your usage data. Your current retailer must provide up to two years of consumption data within five business days of a complete request, at the most detailed level it holds for your account, and an agent you authorise can ask for it. Price every offer on the same 12 months of data: what a good price per kWh looks like shows why.

What does the new retailer need from you?

To identify your business and each connection:

• The ICP number for every site. The Authority's advice is that the ICP is "helpful if you're switching power companies, so that your power supply will not be confused with any other".
• Your legal business name, the trading name that appears on the bill, and a billing contact.
• The supply address for each ICP. The registry address is the lines company's supply address, and the Authority notes it may not match your postal or street address.
• A signed agreement, or a signed letter of authority if a broker or agent is dealing with retailers for you.

Then check the ICP on your first bill. In one case the Authority published, a retailer "incorrectly assigned an incorrect ICP that had a similar address", so the customer paid for a neighbour's electricity until the error was found. The Authority recommends that a gaining retailer confirm the ICP identifier when it takes on a customer.

Can your old retailer talk you out of switching?

Not on its own initiative. The save protection scheme began in 2015 as an opt-in for retailers; the Authority later made it apply to every retailer, and the current clauses took effect on 31 March 2020. Once your old retailer learns you are switching, a 180-day switch protected period begins, during which it "must not, by any means, including by using a third party or agent acting on its behalf", contact you to persuade you to drop the new arrangement, by counter-offer or enticement.

What it may still do, under clause 11.15AB:

• tell you about any termination fees you must pay;
• contact you about fees you owe, your final meter reading, and the effect on any other contract it has with you, for example for gas;
• give a factual answer to a question you ask;
• make a counter-offer if you contact it unprompted and invite one.

The Authority's guidelines say the protection applies per customer rather than per ICP, so a retailer that keeps supplying some of your sites may not use that contact to make offers for the sites it has lost; and the Code says neither retailer, old or new, may harass or coerce you.

What does not change when you switch?

• Your lines company and its charges. A new retailer can package lines charges differently, but it cannot change the lines company's published prices: lines charges explained covers who sets them and why they rise.
• Your ICP and your meter, unless your new plan requires a different meter.
• Your fallback if something goes wrong. The Code's Consumer Care Obligations define a "customer" as a residential consumer, so most of those protections do not reach a business account. If the retailer has not resolved a complaint 20 working days after you raised it, Utilities Disputes can take it, with claims up to $50,000, or $100,000 if the provider agrees. How to read a business power bill covers the complaint route.

When do the new billing rules start, and do they cover a business?

The Authority's final decision of 3 March 2026 set 30 October 2026 as the start date. On 18 August 2026 it replaced "30 October 2026" with "1 April 2027" in the amendment's commencement clause; its news item of 13 August 2026 says the rules start being introduced from 30 October 2026, that retailers have until 1 April 2027 to implement the full set, and that it will list the retailers that comply early.

From 1 April 2027, for a "domestic consumer or a small business consumer":

• A six-month cap on back-billing. Clause 11.32H stops a retailer charging for consumption costs "more than 6 months before the date of the invoice", unless it reasonably believes the undercharge came from the customer's fault, vandalism, a metering issue the customer ignored for at least four months and three requests, or deception. The decision says the limit applies to costs, not credits.
• Support before a catch-up bill. The retailer must make reasonable endeavours to contact you before the invoice, offer a payment plan at least as long as the undercharged period (at least six months in any other case), explain how to complain, and charge no interest. A refinement made on 28 September 2026 applies the contact-and-payment-plan steps only where the undercharge is at least $50 including GST or 25% of your average invoice, on whichever basis the retailer chooses, and lets it state the amount in a separate written communication.
• Proactive meter contact. Clause 11.32I requires reasonable endeavours to contact a customer when no meter reading has been obtained for more than four months.

Under section 5 of the Electricity Industry Act 2010 a small business consumer is a consumer that is not a domestic consumer and, unless regulations specify another class, "consumes less than 40 MWh of electricity per year". The bill-content standards and the annual best-plan check are written for retailers selling to residential consumers; the Authority states that "back billing limitations will also apply to retailers selling to small business consumers". Until 1 April 2027 the Code does not cap a catch-up bill built on estimated reads, so ask your old retailer for an actual final read and check the final invoice against it. Our other business power guides cover the rest.

Do you have to run the switch yourself?

No. Manage My Bills runs the comparison and the switch for businesses nationwide. A single site can start with the business electricity service; a multi-site or large user can use the letter of authority route. Either way, the comparison starts from your address or ICP in the savings calculator.