Getting Off Munich's Default Energy Tariff (Electricity and Gas for New Arrivals)

The Official Rule

Munich’s Grundversorger, the basic supplier legally obligated to serve any household in the city, is SWM Versorgungs GmbH, for both electricity and gas. If you move into a Munich apartment and don’t sign a contract with SWM or anyone else, the moment you draw your first kilowatt-hour you’re automatically a Grundversorgung customer. This isn’t a glitch or a punishment. It’s required under Section 36 of the Energiewirtschaftsgesetz (Energy Industry Act), which obligates basic suppliers to publish standard prices and supply any household customer at those terms, no exceptions, no minimum contract length.

The trade-off for that guarantee is price. As of the price sheet effective 1 February 2026, SWM’s electricity Grundversorgung runs a work rate of 32.44 cents per kWh plus an annual base price of roughly 149.70 euros before meter costs. Gas Grundversorgung follows a similar structure. Neither number looks dramatic in isolation, but a market check by the Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband (vzbv) in October 2025 found that the cheapest available Sondervertrag (special, fixed-term contract) averaged about 27 percent below Grundversorgung costs across German basic-supply regions, and several expat-facing guides put typical Munich savings even higher, in the 30 to 40 percent range depending on how competitive your address’s market is.

Leaving Grundversorgung is deliberately easy, on paper. Under the StromGVV and GasGVV regulations that govern basic supply specifically, you can cancel at any time with just two weeks’ notice, no justification needed, no penalty. If SWM raises its Grundversorgung prices, you can even cancel immediately without waiting out those two weeks. Compare that to a typical Sondervertrag, which can lock you in for up to 24 months, and the irony becomes clear: the tariff everyone falls into by accident is the one that’s easiest to leave, and the cheaper tariff you’d actively choose is the one with the longer commitment.

The part that trips people up is timing, not difficulty. Since a reform that took effect on 6 June 2025, retroactive correction of energy supplier registrations is no longer possible. If you’ve already spent a month drawing power under Grundversorgung before switching, that month stays billed at Grundversorgung rates. Some older expat guides still describe a backdating window, and that used to be closer to true for the related concept of Ersatzversorgung (a stopgap that applies for up to three months when it’s unclear who’s actually supplying a property, for instance right after a previous tenant’s contract ends), but the current, general rule for a standard Grundversorgung move-in is that a new contract only applies going forward. The practical upshot: compare tariffs before you move in if you can, or within your first few days if you can’t, rather than assuming you can clean it up later at no cost.

SWM itself sells several tariffs that undercut its own Grundversorgung, if you’d rather stay with them than switch providers entirely: M/Strom Fix (12-month price guarantee), M/Strom Fix Extra (up to 24 months), and a handful of Ökostrom (green electricity) variants with similar guarantee structures. That’s worth checking alongside comparison sites like Verivox or Check24, since staying with your existing supplier under a proper contract, rather than switching companies, is sometimes the simplest move.

What Real People Say

The pattern that comes up again and again in expat guides isn’t confusion about what Grundversorgung is, it’s the surprise that it’s the default at all. One widely shared framing calls it a hidden tax: nobody tells you at move-in that skipping the “pick a provider” step costs you money every single month until you fix it, sometimes hundreds of euros a year by the time a family notices. Estimates vary by guide and by how competitive your postcode’s market is, but savings in the 200 to 400 euro per year range for a typical household show up consistently enough to take seriously.

The mistake people describe making isn’t laziness, it’s more often a gap in the moving checklist. One account from a longer-running expat guide describes a genuinely messy version of this: a tenant whose landlord cancelled the previous occupant’s contract before the new tenant had signed anything, leaving them stuck for roughly two months with an unfamiliar default supplier and no clear paper trail of who was billing them for what. The lesson isn’t that this is common, it’s that “my landlord’s already got it sorted” is an assumption worth double-checking rather than a fact.

On the comparison-tool side, the advice is fairly consistent across guides: have your postcode, an estimate of annual consumption, and your meter number ready before you start comparing, since most sites ask for exactly that. Verivox and Check24 are the two named most often, and both are free to use for the household, they earn a commission from whichever provider you end up choosing rather than charging you directly.

Step by Step

1. Before your move-in date, or within your first few days in the new apartment, decide you’re not going to let Grundversorgung happen by default. It’s not dangerous to be on it briefly, but every week on it is a week billed at the higher rate with no way to claim it back later.
2. Compare tariffs using your postcode, an annual consumption estimate, and your meter number. Verivox and Check24 are the two most commonly used comparison sites in Germany; SWM’s own alternative tariffs (M/Strom Fix and its Ökostrom variants) are worth a look too if you’d rather not deal with a new company.
3. Sign the new contract and let the provider handle canceling the old one. Nearly every provider’s signup form includes a box authorizing them to cancel your existing supplier on your behalf, so you shouldn’t need to write two separate cancellation letters.
4. Read your meter (Zählernummer and Zählerstand) on the day the new contract actually starts, and keep that number somewhere you can find it. It’s your evidence if the old and new supplier ever disagree about the handover date.
5. If you’re already on Grundversorgung and just found out, don’t wait for a “better time.” You can leave with two weeks’ notice and no penalty, but the switch only applies from that point forward, so the sooner you compare and sign, the sooner the higher rate stops accumulating.
6. Handle water separately, and don’t assume it works the same way as electricity and gas. M-Wasser is normally your landlord’s contract, not yours, and the cost shows up in your Nebenkosten statement rather than a bill in your own name. Check your lease if you’re unsure.