6 Charges That Turn One Missed Tennessee Power Bill Into a $324 Reconnection

Memphis Light, Gas and Water cut off power, gas, or water to tens of thousands of Memphis households in 2025.

Nearly one in five Memphis households lost a utility that year.

None of them paid just one fee to get it back.

Here’s the math behind what one missed Tennessee power bill can turn into by the time the lights come back on.

Note: This is general information, not financial or legal advice. Utility fees, deposit rules and payment deadlines vary by provider and are subject to change.

1. Missing the Payment Deadline

Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW) gives residential customers 12 business days to pay a bill before it’s officially late.

The $324 math in this article is built entirely from MLGW’s own fee schedule and policy manual.

MLGW is the nation’s largest three-service municipal utility, billing power, gas and water together for Memphis and Shelby County.

It isn’t Tennessee’s only option, though.

Nashville Electric Service and Knoxville Utilities Board run separate fee schedules, covered later in this piece, and their totals land in different places.

Miss that window, and MLGW adds a 5% late fee to the unpaid balance starting the 13th business day after the due date, its own customer policy manual states.

MLGW’s own numbers put the average residential bill at $287 a month, so a routine late fee runs about $14.35 before anything else happens.

That’s just the start.

The company reported cutting off power, gas or water to 75,378 households in 2025, a cutoff rate of nearly 20%, with disconnections up 37.7% since 2016.

Cutoffs peak in summer and early fall, when air conditioning has already stretched the budget thin.

2. Triggering a Trip Charge

Memphis Light, Gas and Water’s own schedule of charges lists a $20 trip charge, described simply as a fee assessed for a call made to a customer’s service address.

That’s a technician showing up.

MLGW lists the trip charge in the same section as the reconnection fee and the returned-payment fee, its own family of account service calls tied to a delinquent bill.

A single missed payment can draw more than one of these calls before the account is settled, and each one lands as its own line on the next bill.

Twenty dollars for a knock at the door.

3. Paying Just to Reconnect

MLGW’s schedule of charges sets the reconnection fee for a residential account cut off over nonpayment at $58.

Fifty-eight dollars just to reconnect.

For many Memphis households, that fee alone runs about as much as a week’s groceries.

MLGW’s own policy manual adds that it bills any cost tied to a nonpayment reconnection straight to the customer, stacked on top of whatever balance triggered the shutoff in the first place.

MLGW says it will attempt reconnection the same day a payment clears, though it doesn’t guarantee it.

Until then, MLGW counts the $58 as part of what’s owed, right alongside the original balance, and it doesn’t lower either number in the meantime.

4. Resetting Your Security Deposit

MLGW’s policy manual lets the utility require a brand-new security deposit as soon as a customer’s account is reconnected after a nonpayment cutoff.

MLGW bills a $200 minimum deposit on the very next statement to any customer who doesn’t already have one on file and has less than two years of active service.

Two hundred dollars, right away.

A second reconnection within that window adds another $50, up to a maximum of $400.

MLGW doesn’t send that deposit as a separate bill. It adds the amount directly to whatever balance is already on the account.

5. Bouncing the Catch-Up Payment

MLGW’s schedule of charges adds a flat $30 fee whenever a check used to catch up a past-due account comes back unpaid.

Thirty dollars, one bounced check.

That charge is documented for a bounced check. MLGW’s fee schedule doesn’t spell out whether a stopped payment or a declined card charge triggers the same $30.

Two bounced checks within a 12-month period, and MLGW’s Customer Care Policy Manual says the account can no longer pay by personal check for a year.

MLGW still accepts cash, money orders, cashier’s checks, approved checks, gift cards, and both credit and debit cards on that account. It stops accepting only the personal check.

MLGW never bills the $30 separately. It adds the fee straight onto the same past-due account.

6. Paying Extra to Pay Online

MLGW’s 2026 schedule of charges tacks on $1.50 for secure credit card processing on an online payment.

It’s a small fee next to a $58 reconnection charge or a $200 deposit.

But it’s one more charge stacked onto an account a customer is already racing to fix, often from a phone, in the minutes right after the power goes out.

Small, but it counts.

How Nashville and Knoxville Compare

Tennessee’s other two big power companies, Nashville Electric Service (NES) and Knoxville Utilities Board (KUB), run the same kind of stack, using their own numbers.

NES charges a 5% late fee, a reconnection fee that runs $36 to $128 depending on the hour, and as much as $287 if a crew has to reconnect service at the pole.

NES also lists a $250 residential deposit, separate from Memphis’ numbers.

Three utilities, three tabs.

KUB charges the same 5% late fee, a $40 reconnection fee during business hours or $80 after hours, and a flat $300 deposit per premise.

KUB also charges a $40 multiple-trip fee if a crew can’t get into the property on the first visit.