How to read your electricity and gas meter: smart, digital, dial and Economy 7

Which meter do you have?

Most homes in Great Britain now have a smart meter. At the end of June 2026 there were 40 million smart meters in homes and small businesses, and 92 per cent of them were working in smart mode, according to the government’s quarterly statistics. Three homes in four have a smart electricity meter, and more than half a smart gas meter.

A smart meter has a digital screen and buttons, and usually comes with a separate portable screen, the in-home display. A digital meter shows a row of numbers but has no in-home display and doesn’t send readings. A dial meter has a row of small clock-like dials. A two-rate meter, such as one for Economy 7, shows two sets of numbers, either on two rows or one after another on the screen. Gas meters come in metric (cubic metres, marked m³) and older imperial (cubic feet, ft³) versions.

Prepayment meters usually don’t need readings for billing: you pay as you go. British Gas says that if you have a Pay As You Go meter, readings are sent each time you top up.

How to read a smart meter

First, check whether you need to. Ofgem says a smart meter “automatically sends your electricity and gas meter readings to your supplier”, so you “do not need to submit meter readings yourself”. OVO says a smart meter customer usually only needs to send a reading when they first join, when the meter has just been installed, or if there is a technical problem.

If your supplier asks for a reading, take it from the meter itself, not the in-home display. Citizens Advice says to take readings “from your meters rather than your in-home display”, because the display’s readings “usually take a bit longer to update than the ones on your meters”, and EDF asks for the same. The meter is usually in a kitchen cupboard or a box on an outside wall, Citizens Advice says; the display is the portable screen that sits in your home.

Smart meters have different buttons depending on the maker, so you have to match yours to the instructions. These are the common layouts on Citizens Advice’s guide to reading a smart electricity meter, for a single-rate meter:

Number keypad: press 9 and wait for “IMP KWH”. Your reading is the number before KWH.

A and B buttons under the screen: press A, then keep pressing A until you see “TOTAL ACT IMPORT”.

Green A button on the right, white B button below it: press B; when the screen says “meter boost”, press A to select “no”, then read the number next to KWH. EDF identifies this meter as the Landis+Gyr E470.

Three buttons to the right of the screen: press the middle button and read the number under “IMP”.

One orange button on the left and two blue ones: press the orange button and read the number next to KWH.

Blue A button and orange button on the right: press A to light the screen, then again until you see “Total active import kWh”.

Some meters show the reading without a button press. If yours doesn’t match any of these, check your supplier’s help pages, which show the meters it fits. IMP, or import, is electricity you have taken from the grid; KWH is kilowatt-hours, the unit you are billed in. Citizens Advice says to write the numbers down from left to right and ignore anything after a decimal point. If you have solar panels, an export reading (EXP) is the electricity you have sent back to the grid.

A smart gas meter shows cubic metres (M3). Citizens Advice’s steps for the common layouts: on a keypad, press 9; you’ll see “VOLUME”, then wait for a number followed by M3; with A and B buttons under the screen, press A until you see “METER INDEX”; with an orange and a blue button, press orange until you see a number followed by M3. Write down the number before the decimal point: Citizens Advice’s example: “If the number on the display is 000135.658, the meter reading is 135.”

SMETS1 and SMETS2: does it matter which you have?

SMETS1 meters are the first generation of smart meters; SMETS2 is the current one. The difference used to matter when you switched supplier, because a new supplier often couldn’t read a SMETS1 meter, and it stopped working as a smart meter.

That has largely been fixed. DCC, the company that runs the national smart meter network, says “the vast majority of eligible SMETS1 smart meters have now been migrated” onto it, and that a meter may need replacing where that wasn’t possible. With a SMETS2 meter, DCC says a switch “should happen automatically without disrupting your readings, supply, or payments”. With a SMETS1 meter that hasn’t been moved over, it says readings might stop for a short time after a switch, and you might have to send manual readings until it is updated.

You can find out which you have, and whether it will stay smart if you switch, with Citizens Advice’s smart meter checker, using the meter numbers on your bill (MPAN for electricity, MPRN for gas) and your postcode. Your supplier can also tell you.

When a smart meter has gone “dumb” and you need a manual reading

A smart meter that stops talking to your supplier still measures what you use; it just behaves like a traditional meter. The giveaway is your bill. Citizens Advice says that if your bill marks readings as estimated, “it’s likely your supplier isn’t getting automatic readings”. Other signs are an in-home display that has lost its connection, and a meter screen that is blank or shows “error”, “call help” or “battery”, which Citizens Advice says suggest a fault.

If the in-home display has lost its signal, Citizens Advice suggests waiting an hour, then moving it closer to the meter. If it still hasn’t reconnected after 24 hours, contact your supplier.

Tell your supplier the meter isn’t sending readings and ask it to fix it; it must take all reasonable steps to get it working, Citizens Advice says. If smart mode has been switched off, you can ask for it to be turned back on. Until it works, read the meter yourself and, in Citizens Advice’s words, “Send them to your supplier once a month.” On a prepayment smart meter that won’t accept credit, contact your supplier straight away.

How to read a digital electricity meter

Citizens Advice: “Write down the first 5 numbers shown from left to right.” Ignore any other numbers, including any shown in red at the end, and anything after a decimal point.

If your meter has a button and shows more than one screen, or two rows of numbers, it is probably a two-rate meter: see the Economy 7 section below.

How to read a dial meter

Read the first five dials from left to right, ignoring any red dials or dials marked 1/10. Citizens Advice’s rules:

Between two numbers: write down the lower one. If it is between 9 and 0, write down 9.

Directly on a number: write that number down and underline it. Then look at the next dial to the right: if its pointer is between 9 and 0, reduce the underlined number by one.

Next-door dials turn in opposite directions, one clockwise and one anticlockwise, so check which way each one runs before deciding which number is lower. A dial gas meter works the same way; British Gas says to read the four dials on the bottom row.

Economy 7 and other two-rate meters

A two-rate meter keeps separate counts for electricity used at the cheaper night or off-peak rate and at the normal rate. You need to send both readings. On a traditional meter with two rows of numbers, Citizens Advice says the top row, labelled “low” or “night”, is the cheaper electricity and the bottom row, labelled “normal” or “day”, is the standard price. If a single display has an “N” on the label, “it doesn’t stand for ‘night’”: it means normal.

On a smart two-rate meter you step through the registers. On a keypad, press 6 to see “IMP R01”, then 6 again for “IMP R02”. On a meter with a green A button, press A until “Rate 01 Act Imp”, then again for “Rate 02 Act Imp”. On a meter with three buttons to the right of the screen, press the middle button for “R1”, again for “R2”, then “T” for the total, which Citizens Advice says to use only if your supplier asks for it.

Which register is night isn’t the same on every meter: the suppliers’ pages contradict each other on whether rate 1 or rate 2 is the cheap rate. Citizens Advice suggests a simple check. Note both numbers in the morning and look again later in the day: the one that has gone up is the day or peak rate. OVO suggests checking the last readings on your bill, which show which register is which.

Some older two-rate meters were switched between rates by a radio signal, the Radio Teleswitch Service (RTS). Ofgem says support for RTS meters “has now ended”, and Octopus and EDF say the switch-off finished on 30 June 2026. If you still have one, Ofgem says to contact your supplier about a replacement smart meter. Octopus says to check that your heating and hot water are still coming on when you expect. This affects only meters controlled by the RTS radio signal, not every Economy 7 meter.

On a standard single-rate tariff you pay the same rate day and night, British Gas says, so moving the washing to night-time saves nothing. On Economy 7 or a smart time-of-use tariff it can.

How to read a gas meter: metric or imperial

Look for the units on the front. OVO says older meters measure in imperial, cubic feet (ft³), and newer ones in metric, cubic metres (m³).

Metric (m³): write down the first five numbers, before the decimal point, and ignore everything after it.

Imperial (ft³): write down the first four numbers and ignore the red ones after them.

Send the numbers as they appear on the meter. If the readings on your bill have a different number of digits from your meter, ask your supplier to check it has the right meter details.

Meter reading tips: take a photo, and when to send it

Take a photo of the meter showing the reading, ideally with the date on it. It is your own record if a bill is ever disputed, and British Gas suggests one before a price cap change. Citizens Advice says to include photos of meter readings if you complain about a bill.

Send readings through your supplier’s app, website or phone line. Good times to send one:

Regularly, if you have no working smart meter. Citizens Advice and British Gas both suggest once a month. Without readings, your supplier sends estimated bills, which Citizens Advice says “might not be accurate”.

When the price cap changes. Ofgem sets the cap every three months. On a standard variable tariff with no working smart meter, a reading on or around the day saves your supplier estimating how much you used before the change, and British Gas suggests a photo of the meter beforehand. The next cap period starts on 1 January 2027.

When you move home. Citizens Advice says to read your meters on the day you move out and give the readings to your supplier, and to read them again on the day you move in.

When you switch supplier. Your new supplier usually asks for an opening reading, even from some smart meters: Octopus says that with a SMETS2 meter, a new customer’s first reading needs to be sent manually.

If your energy bill looks wrong

Start with the readings. Check whether the bill says “estimated” or “actual”, and compare the latest reading on it with what your meter shows now. If the bill was estimated, send a reading and ask for a corrected bill.

Check it is your meter. Citizens Advice suggests checking that the meter number on your bill (the MPRN for gas, the MPAN for electricity) is the one registered to your address. Smart Energy GB says the meter serial number is usually printed on the front of the meter, so you can compare it with the details your supplier holds.

If it is still wrong, complain to your supplier and keep copies of everything you send and receive. If you don’t reach an agreement, or haven’t had a decision within eight weeks, you can take it to the Energy Ombudsman. The Citizens Advice consumer helpline, 0808 223 1133, is free and open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.

Old bills have a limit. Ofgem bans suppliers from back-billing for energy used more than 12 months ago, unless you have actively stopped them from getting accurate meter readings. Citizens Advice puts it simply: your supplier “usually can’t charge you for energy you used more than a year ago.”

The 2G and 3G switch-off: will my smart meter keep working?

Many smart meters send their readings over the mobile network, which is why the end of 2G and 3G comes up. According to DCC, second-generation smart meters in central and southern Britain use the mobile network (2G, now that 3G is closing), while in the north most use a long-range radio network, which DCC says “is unaffected by 2G/3G sunsetting”. DCC says its contract obliges its provider to support 2G until 2033, and any remaining first-generation SMETS1 meters, which have a built-in 2G connection, will need replacing before then.

In its response on smart metering after 2025, last updated in March 2026, the government decided that energy suppliers must take all reasonable steps to replace affected communications hubs and related equipment before the end dates DCC publishes for those networks (the end of 2033 for 2G and 3G), whether or not they are still working. DCC is installing new 4G communications hubs, the box that sits on or next to the meter, for that reason.

So there is nothing you need to do now. If your supplier contacts you to replace your meter or its hub, the work is part of this programme; if your smart meter stops sending readings in the meantime, follow the steps above and read it yourself until it is fixed.