Geneva service charge estimator: heating and hot water
Enter the building's age, the home's size and the heating energy: the estimator gives a monthly range for heating and hot water, plus or minus a third.
Your home
Above the Geneva threshold: a building of this period normally exceeds the 125 kWh per m² per year set by the cantonal energy law. The owner then owes renovation measures to the canton. The building's actual index appears on the heating statement or is available from the managing agent.
An order of magnitude, never the amount of a statement: heating and hot water only, excluding cold water, common-area electricity, caretaking, lift and administrative costs. Consumption benchmarks of the cantonal energy services as at 24 June 2026, SIG tariffs as at 1 April 2026. No legal cap applies to service charges: the only limit is the landlord's actual expense (art. 257b para. 1 CO); a higher statement justifies asking for the supporting documents (art. 257b para. 2 CO).
Method and sources
- Annual cost = floor area × consumption benchmark × heat price × 1.126 for the operating costs of the installation. Range shown at plus or minus one third.
- Consumption benchmarks by construction period: cantonal energy and environment services, page « Besoins de chaleur et CECB », updated 24 June 2026.
- Heat price: Services industriels de Genève, standard gas tariff in force on 1 April 2026 (8.68 ct/kWh including taxes) and 2026 grid of the structuring thermal networks, consumption share of the Vertua product (9.23 ct/kWh).
- Operating-cost supplement: Swiss Federal Office of Energy and SwissEnergy, DIFEE model, 5th edition, September 2023, example in chapter 4 (12.6% of energy costs).
- Average floor areas by size: Geneva cantonal statistics office, rent tables, situation in May 2021.
- Geneva threshold of the heat expenditure index: 125 kWh/m² per year, art. 15C of the cantonal energy law and art. 14 of its implementing regulation.
- Deviations not modelled: occupant behaviour (a 1-to-3 ratio on heating between comparable homes according to the federal model), energy reference area larger than the home's floor area, share of general costs allocated by area, the building's tariff band, the weather year.
What Geneva service charges cost
Heating and hot water charges for a Geneva home range from 5 to 22 francs per square metre per year, or between 30 and 140 francs a month for a 77 m² 4-room flat. The gap depends first on the building's energy performance: a building from the 2010s consumes around 48 kWh per m² per year, an unrenovated building from the 1960s and 1970s around 220 kWh.
The estimator multiplies the consumption benchmark for the building's construction period by the Geneva energy tariff and adds the installation's operating costs allowed under the Ordinance on the Lease of Residential and Commercial Premises (OBLF). It also places the building against the cantonal threshold of 125 kWh per m² per year, beyond which the owner owes energy-efficiency measures.
What the estimator does not tell you
The result is an order of magnitude, never the amount of a statement of charges. Cold water, common-area electricity, caretaking, the lift and administrative costs are added when the lease provides for them. No statutory cap limits service charges: the only limit is the landlord's actual expenditure, and a statement higher than the range justifies requesting the supporting documents.
What is chargeable, the lease clause that makes charges due, the annual statement and how to challenge it are detailed in the service charges guide for Geneva.