True Cost of Holiday Lights by State

The display

• The display is 10 strings of 100 mini lights, on for 6 hours a night every night from November 27, 2026, the day after Thanksgiving, to January 1, 2027, 36 nights. The controls change the number of strings, the hours, the nights and the bulb type.
• Each string draws its rated wattage, from the manufacturer's published specifications: 7.2 watts for Northlight's Set of 100 warm white LED mini lights, white wire (NL02498) and 40.8 watts for its 100 clear mini lights, green wire (NL02342). The other ratings found, listed below, run from 4.8 to 9.6 watts for LED and 40.8 to 42.5 watts for incandescent; the page uses the median of each. Controllers, timers and inflatables are left out. [4]
• Download the data at the default settings as a CSV file.

How we calculate

• Energy is strings times watts times hours a night times nights, over 1,000, in kWh. The price is EIA's average residential price for each state in December 2025, the same month of the season a year earlier, from the monthly prices the heating page averages over the winter. EIA's price includes taxes the utility pays but not taxes billed to the customer. [1] [2]
• Every tax the law charges to the customer is on the receipt, the rule this series uses throughout: sales taxes, and utility users, public service, consumption, excise and energy taxes, from the same records as the heating page. Local taxes are those of a home in the state's largest city, as the series' other pages use each area's principal city. A tax set per kWh is applied to the lights' kWh, at the rate for the first block of monthly use where it steps down. Jacksonville's public service tax leaves out most of the fuel charge, and the page works out its rate per kWh from JEA's tariff. California's energy resources surcharge of $0.0003 a kWh comes to less than half a cent on the default LED display, so it rounds to $0.00. Minnesota exempts home electricity from November to April only when it is the home's main heat; the page uses the state's most common heating fuel from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, which in Minnesota is gas, so the lights are taxed. Wisconsin's November to April exemption covers the whole season. Maine taxes residential electricity above 750 kWh a month, and the page assumes the home's other use takes up the first 750 kWh, so the lights are taxed. Virginia Beach's consumer utility tax is capped at $3.00 a month, which the home's other use already reaches, so the lights add nothing to it. Taxes the law places on the utility, and charges that are not taxes, are listed on the heating page and left off these receipts. [3]
• The electricity cost is the kWh times the price, rounded to the cent. Each tax is a percentage of that cost, or its rate times the kWh, rounded to the cent. States that tie share a rank.

String ratings

• Northlight NL02498. Set of 100 warm white LED mini lights, white wire, 7.2 watts [5]
• Northlight NL02499. Set of 100 green LED mini lights, green wire, 7.2 watts [6]
• Northlight NL02510. Set of 100 red LED mini lights, white wire, 4.8 watts [7]
• Northlight NL02547. Set of 100 warm white LED wide angle lights, white wire, 7.2 watts [8]
• Vickerman X4G6101. 100-light warm white wide angle LED set, 9.6 watts [9]
• Northlight NL02342. 100 clear mini lights, green wire, 40.8 watts [10]
• Wintergreen Lighting 15203. 100 clear mini lights, green wire, 40.8 watts [11]
• Brite Star 37-340-00. 100-light mini light set, multi, green wire, 42.5 watts [12]

Secondary sources

Where no current primary document gives an amount, the page uses the best other source and marks it "secondary". A charge that exists is never counted as zero. 5 tax rates come from secondary sources.

• Florida. Jacksonville public service tax, 0.008%. The tax is 10% of JEA's taxable charges, which leave out most of the fuel charge. The per-kWh rate here, $0.0081791, is worked out from JEA's tariff: 10% of the energy charge for the first 1,000 kWh a month ($0.07237) plus the taxable part of the fuel charge ($0.00511), with the 2.5641% gross receipts tax and 3% franchise fee on them.
• Kansas. Sedgwick County sales tax, 1%. 1% county rate from secondary rate guides (trykintsugi, salestaxhandbook); ksrevenue.gov timed out. The local-tax-applies rule is primary (KDOR propane guide, K.S.A. 12-189a).
• Louisiana. New Orleans local sales tax, 5%. The Orleans Parish ordinance could not be read. Entergy New Orleans's bill guide lists a city sales tax line, and Louisiana's constitution exempts home electricity and gas from the state tax only (Art. VII, Sec. 2.2, in the Department of Revenue's exemption table R-1002).
• Utah. Salt Lake City energy sales and use tax, 6%. Rate is primary (Tax Commission chart https://files.tax.utah.gov/tax/salestax/rate/25q4other.pdf via web.archive.org). The incidence quote comes from search excerpts and a district resolution because le.utah.gov refused connections.
• West Virginia. Charleston utility excise tax, 2%. The 2% rate comes from the city's utility excise tax return (revised 2009); the ordinance text could not be read, and a 2026 bill to exempt homes had not been confirmed passed or failed.

Update Schedule

This page is reviewed quarterly and when EIA publishes new prices. The current data reflects prices, ratings and taxes checked in October 2026.