Cost to run a laptop
A laptop drawing 50 W costs 1.32p for each hour of running at 26.32p/kWh. Used 5 hours a day, every day, that comes to £2.09 a month.
An hour of running costs
1.32p an hour
That is 0.05 kWh. Used as set, it comes to £2.09 a month and £25.11 a year.
On the label or in the manual.
Standby, thermostats and off-peak use
A thermostat switches it on and off to hold a temperature. 100% if it runs flat out.
Drawn while plugged in and not running.
| Period | Cost | Energy | CO2e |
|---|---|---|---|
| An hour of running | 1.32p | 0.05 kWh | 11 g |
| A day, on average | 6.88p | 0.26 kWh | 57 g |
| A month | £2.09 | 7.95 kWh | 1.7 kg |
| A year | £25.11 | 95.4 kWh | 20.7 kg |
How we calculated this
Energy is power multiplied by time: 50 W running for an hour uses 0.05 kWh.
Standby is counted for every hour it is plugged in and not running, on days it is used and days it is not.
Centre for Sustainable Energy and Virginia Tech give the same rating for a laptop, so there is a single figure. It is what the charger supplies while the laptop works and charges; on battery alone it draws nothing from the wall. The standby figure is what an ENERGY STAR certified laptop draws asleep, at the median.
The starting use for a laptop, 5 hours a day, every day, is where the calculator starts, not a measurement of your home: change it to how you use yours. A day is the average across the week, and a month is a twelfth of a 365-day year.
Electricity costs 26.32p/kWh. That is the published figure for the United Kingdom, 1 Oct – 31 Dec 2026, from Ofgem. Average for England, Scotland and Wales, paying by Direct Debit. No VAT on electricity from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027.
Standing charges are left out: you pay them whether or not the appliance runs.
Emissions use 0.217 kg CO2e per kWh, the lifecycle intensity of electricity generated in the United Kingdom in 2025, from Ember, via Our World in Data. Lifecycle means building the power stations and supplying their fuel are counted too. It is the grid’s average, not the particular power station an extra appliance brings on.
What drives the cost
A laptop is one of the cheapest computers to run, at 50 W from the charger while it works and charges. At 5 hours a day, every day, a laptop costs £25.11 a year, less than a desktop left on for the same time.
Also called: notebook, laptop computer, laptop charger.
What it costs in the UK, Europe and the US
For a laptop used as typical (5 hours a day, every day), at each country’s published average electricity price.
| Country | Electricity price | An hour |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 26.32p/kWh | 1.32p |
| United States (average) | 18.19¢/kWh | 0.91¢ |
| Ireland | €0.4042/kWh | €0.02 |
| Germany | 0,3869 €/kWh | 0,019 € |
| France | 0,2561 €/kWh | 0,013 € |
| Spain | 0,2669 €/kWh | 0,013 € |
| Italy | 0,2966 €/kWh | 0,015 € |
| Netherlands | € 0,2558/kWh | € 0,013 |
Compared with similar appliances
| Appliance | Typical power | An hour | A year, typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Laptop | 50 W | 1.32p | £25.11 |
| Desktop computer | 140 W | 3.68p | £56.87 |
| Computer monitor | 14.2 W | 0.37p | £7.23 |
| Wi-Fi router | 10 W | 0.26p | £23.06 |
How to spend less on it
- Unplug the charger when the battery is full and you are done: a charger left plugged in with nothing attached still draws a little.
- Use it in place of a desktop where you can: the same hours cost less at 50 W than a desktop at its typical rating.
Questions
How much does a laptop cost to run per hour?
At 26.32p/kWh, a laptop drawing 50 W costs 1.32p for every hour of running at full power.
How much does a laptop cost to run a year?
Used 5 hours a day, every day, it costs about £25.11 a year at 26.32p/kWh, or £2.09 a month.
How much does it cost to charge a laptop?
At 50 W while it is charging and working, an hour costs 1.32p at 26.32p/kWh. Once the battery is full it usually draws less, so a laptop left plugged in costs a little less than that.
How much does a laptop draw when it is idle?
ENERGY STAR measured a median of 4.9 W for certified laptops sitting idle, and 0.6 W asleep. That is far below the charger’s 50 W, which covers a laptop working hard and charging its battery at the same time.
Sources
- How much electricity am I using?, Centre for Sustainable Energy, July 2026. “Laptop (50 W)”
- ENERGY SERIES: Estimating Appliance and Home Electronic Energy Use, Virginia Cooperative Extension, Virginia Tech, 26 February 2020. “Laptop = 50”
- ENERGY STAR Certified Computers V9.0 (open data), ENERGY STAR, US Environmental Protection Agency, 26 September 2026. “ENERGY STAR certified notebook computers, sleep-mode power: median 0.6 W across 1,131 certified models, 10th to 90th percentile 0.4 W to 1.2 W (models where type='Notebook').”
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