Entergy Arkansas Rate Increase 2026: $1.16 or 4.9%?

Entergy Arkansas says its pending rate case would raise a typical household bill by about $1.16 a month at 1,000 kWh, less than 1%. A clean energy business group in the case projects 4.9%. Neither figure is approved: the Arkansas Public Service Commission (APSC) holds its final public comment hearing on October 27, 2026, and an evidentiary hearing on November 4 and 5, and any change would start with January 2027 bills.

The filing is Docket No. 26-001-U, which the Southern Renewable Energy Association describes as Entergy Arkansas’s first full rate case in a decade. It covers base rates for Entergy Arkansas’s approximately 735,000 customers. It does not cover the Generating Arkansas Jobs Act rider, fuel costs, SWEPCO or the cooperatives; our overview of Arkansas electric rates and the state’s solar rules covers those 2026 changes.

The Request at a Glance

Why the Rate Notice Looks So Much Worse Than $1.16

Entergy’s legal notice lists present and proposed residential charges. At first glance every line jumps by about half:

The catch is the “present” column. Since 2016, Entergy Arkansas has adjusted rates through annual formula rate plan (FRP) filings rather than full rate cases. Those adjustments sit in a separate rider billed as a percentage of base revenue: 52.4369% for residential customers, according to the notice. The proposal folds that rider into base rates and resets it to zero.

So today’s real base charge is the listed rate plus 52.4369%. The customer charge is $8.40 × 1.524369 = about $12.80, against $12.92 proposed. The winter energy charge for the first 1,500 kWh is 6.990¢ × 1.524369 = about 10.66¢, against 10.758¢ proposed. Each line rises about 1% in practice, not 54%.

Our check of the $1.16 figure

We recalculated a 1,000 kWh residential bill from the notice’s rates. Assumptions: Rate RS, 1,000 kWh every month, the FRP rider applied to both the customer charge and energy charges (the notice calls it a percent of base revenue), and four summer months (June to September) and eight winter months. We left out fuel and other riders that this case does not change.

That matches Entergy’s figure. The increase is about 0.96% of these base charges, and a smaller share of the whole bill once fuel and other riders are added. The same math gives about +$0.63 a month at 500 kWh in winter and +$2.04 at 2,000 kWh in winter.

Why Critics Put It Closer to 5%

The AAEA, a trade group of clean energy and efficiency businesses that has intervened in the case, projects a 4.9% increase under Entergy’s formula rate proposal, according to Arkansas Business. We could not read the group’s full analysis or the paywalled article, so we cannot say exactly what the 4.9% includes.

Two other charges move alongside the rate case, and neither is in the $1.16 figure:

• The January 2027 FRP adjustment. The rate notice said Entergy would file an FRP netting adjustment in July 2026, effective January 2027, which it then anticipated would be greater than zero. The FRP filing Entergy made on July 7, 2026, in Docket No. 16-036-FR, for the same January 2027 start, instead proposes a decrease: $8.8 million (−0.34%) overall and $4.2 million (−0.37%) for residential customers, with the residential rider set at −0.4885%, down from 52.4369%. It is pending. If the commission has not ruled by December 15, 2026, it takes effect January 4, 2027, subject to refund. Our rough estimate, if both filings were approved as filed: 0.4885% of an average proposed 1,000 kWh base bill of about $122.56 is about $0.60, which would cut the $1.16 increase to roughly $0.56 a month. Entergy is also proposing a new version of the formula rate plan for later years, according to AAEA’s summary of testimony.
• The Generating Arkansas Jobs Act rider. This separate charge for power plants under construction was filed to start with June 2026 bills and is updated each year. Our Arkansas hub puts the 2026 step at about $4.22 a month at 1,000 kWh after a nuclear tax credit, based on Talk Business & Politics reporting. We have not confirmed that it was approved as filed.

AAEA’s Lauren Waldrip told Powering Arkansas that the residential increase is “likely closer to five percent.” The gap between that and Entergy’s figure may come down to which riders and later adjustments each side counts, but we could not confirm AAEA’s method.

Entergy has said that the combined change from the rider and this rate review is expected to be at or below past FRP changes.

What Other Parties Are Asking For

Written testimony was filed on August 19, 2026, according to AAEA’s summary, which we could not check against the testimony itself:

• Attorney General’s office: witness Greg Meyer proposed adjustments that would cut Entergy’s updated deficiency by about $106.7 million, and said current rates would produce “excessive earnings.” Witness Christopher Walters recommended a return on equity no higher than 9.35%, against Entergy’s 9.9%.
• Hospitals and Higher Education Group: recommended about $120.5 million in adjustments, which would turn the request into a $75.8 million decrease, with a 9.3% return on equity.
• APSC General Staff: recommended rejecting Entergy’s proposed increases by customer class and setting rates from Staff’s own cost-of-service study, according to AAEA. Its dollar figure was not in the summary we read.

Other parties have raised planning issues rather than numbers. The Southern Renewable Energy Association filed testimony arguing that Entergy’s resource and transmission planning needs competitive procurement and longer horizons.

Who Else Pays More

Entergy’s notice shows the residential class as a whole essentially flat over the test period (a $243 change), even though our 1,000 kWh example rises about 1%; the notice’s class totals reflect the whole class under test-year conditions and are not a per-household bill estimate. The increase lands elsewhere: about 7.03% for the small general service class (small businesses) and 0.94% for the large general service class. Powering Arkansas reports AAEA’s estimate that agricultural irrigation customers could see increases approaching 12%; we did not verify that figure.

Entergy also proposes a new optional residential time-of-use rate, with on-peak energy at 31.041¢/kWh, off-peak at 10.347¢ and a discount period at 6.208¢, plus the $12.92 customer charge. The notice shows no proposed rates for the two existing residential time-of-use schedules.

What It Means for Your Bill and for Solar

For most households, the base rate reset itself is a small change. Proposed charges track today’s charges-plus-rider at about +1% on every line, so the bill shape stays the same: no big shift from energy charges to the fixed customer charge. The larger questions for 2027 bills are what the commission approves in both pending filings and the size of the next Jobs Act rider step.

For solar owners and shoppers:

• Fixed charge: the customer charge you pay with or without panels goes from about $12.80 to $12.92 in effect, about 12 cents.
• Self-consumed solar: each kWh you produce and use yourself avoids the energy charge, which rises about 1%. That nudges solar savings up slightly.
• Exports: Arkansas systems installed after September 30, 2024, are on net billing, with surplus paid at the utility’s avoided cost, so this case does little for exported power. Our explainer on fixed charges and solar savings shows why the fixed part of a bill matters.
• Time of use: if you add a battery, the proposed time-of-use rate’s 31¢ peak and 6.2¢ discount period could reward shifting use. Run the numbers on your own load before switching.

How to Comment

• Public comment hearing: 6 p.m. Tuesday, October 27, 2026, El Dorado Conference Center, 311 S. West Avenue, El Dorado, AR 71730.
• Evidentiary hearing: set for 9:30 a.m. November 4 and 5, 2026, APSC Hearing Room, 1000 Center Street, Little Rock.
• In writing: send comments referencing Docket No. 26-001-U to the APSC Secretary, P.O. Box 400, Little Rock, AR 72201, as listed in Entergy’s notice, or check the APSC website for online filing.

To see which lines on your bill this case touches, use our guide to reading your electric bill. Our explainer on how electric rate cases work covers what happens after the hearings.

Limitations

We could not open the APSC docket, the testimony, or the AAEA and Arkansas Times analyses directly; party positions come from AAEA’s published summary and are labeled as such. Our bill math assumes the FRP rider applies to all base charges and excludes fuel and other riders. The combined $0.56 estimate assumes the July FRP filing’s −0.4885% applies to the proposed base rates; the commission may change either filing.

Sources and verification

Checked October 24, 2026. Figures are requests, not approved rates.