EMA announces enhanced safeguards for residential electricity contracts with auto-renewal

28 January 2026

On 19 December 2025, the Energy Market Authority (“EMA”) announced that with effect from 19 June 2026, EMA will institute more safeguards to protect the interests of residential consumers with automatic renewal (“auto-renewal”) electricity contracts.

Currently, electricity retailers have the option to offer electricity contracts that will be automatically renewed upon expiry of the contracts. Such contracts are auto-renewed with pre-determined terms (including contract duration) that are similar to the terms under the existing contracts, without the need to submit a new application. EMA presently requires electricity retailers offering auto-renewal contracts to residential consumers to do the following:

  • Notify the residential consumers about any upcoming auto-renewal of their electricity contracts at least 10 business days before contract expiry;
  • Set the rate of the auto-renewed contract at no higher than the prevailing regulated tariff for consumers buying electricity from SP Group; and
  • Waive any early termination fee within the first 30 days of the auto-renewal.

EMA had received feedback from residential consumers that they missed the retailers’ notifications informing them of the upcoming auto-renewal. Residential consumers also only realised that their contracts had been auto-renewed after the 30-day window, subjecting them to early termination fees.

EMA has consulted with the electricity retailers to address the above feedback and will introduce the following new requirements with effect from 19 June 2026:

  • Notify residential consumers twice (instead of once) about any upcoming auto-renewal of their electricity contracts. The first notification must be sent at least 10 days before contract expiry, and the second notification must be sent within three days before or on the day of the auto-renewal.
  • The above notifications must be sent via mail communication (i.e. email or postal mail) and mobile communication (such as SMS, WhatsApp message, or via the retailer’s mobile application).
  • Waive any early termination fee for residential consumers within the first 60 days of the auto-renewal.

The new requirements, which will be reflected in the Code of Conduct for Retail Electricity Licensees, will not apply to consumers buying electricity at the regulated tariff from SP Group.

In early 2025, EMA conducted a public consultation on the proposed modifications to the automatic renewal practice for electricity retailers. More information is set out in our article “EMA consults on proposed modifications to automatic renewal practice for electricity retailers”.

Reference materials

The press release is available on the EMA website www.ema.gov.sg.