Phnom Penh Condo Utilities: Tariffs and Owner Bills

Two similar Phnom Penh apartments can produce different bills before air-conditioning habits enter the picture. The first distinction is who buys the utility from the supplier. With a direct account, the apartment receives a supplier bill tied to a documented customer category. With a building-level account, the external customer is the property or its operator and the resident receives an internal charge instead. A unit submeter, a building-set rate and fixed line items can all sit between those two points.

Electricity and water need not follow the same route. PPWSA explicitly separates domestic, commercial and government customers, with tariff bands that change by category and consumption. If a condominium buys water through a shared account, the domestic PPWSA table cannot automatically be treated as the apartment tariff. Electricity requires the same discipline: EAC residential bands are useful as a supplier-side reference, but the building’s connection class has to be established separately.

Current Phnom Penh listings show several billing models in the same market. Time Square 5 is repeatedly advertised by CAM Realty at USD 0.25/kWh for electricity and USD 0.60/m³ for water, with management included in the rental package. The Bridge SOHO is structured differently in current listings: electricity is quoted at USD 0.24/kWh while water is a fixed USD 5 per month. Those are fundamentally different charging methods even before usage is considered.

J Tower 2 is an even better illustration of why listing data need verification. Recent IPS, ERA and realestate.com.kh pages commonly quote USD 0.30/kWh for electricity and USD 0.25/m³ for water, while a CAM Realty unit page shows USD 0.25/kWh and USD 0.25/m³. That conflict does not prove misconduct or even a current error. It may reflect a different date, contract or stale listing data. For a buyer, the rate shown in a property advert is therefore a lead to the building document, not the last word.

This is why “who issues the bill?” is more useful than “what is the rate?” Where EDC or PPWSA bills the customer directly, the customer category, period and readings can be checked against the supplier schedule. Where management issues the apartment charge, the chain needs a building rule, the internal meter basis and the actual invoice. Without that chain, a higher internal rate is an observed difference, not proof of a markup, profit or improper charge.

A correct rate can still be applied to the wrong period. Electricity is measured in kWh and water in cubic metres, but matching units do not make two bills comparable by themselves. The reading dates and billing window matter, as does whether the figure comes from a supplier cycle or a building’s internal monthly statement. One bill can look twice as high simply because it covers twice as long.

PPWSA makes this distinction explicit. Its official billing page says direct customer invoices are printed every two months after the water meter is read. A condominium may issue its own statement monthly. Sixteen cubic metres on a two-month PPWSA invoice and sixteen cubic metres on a one-month management bill therefore describe different consumption patterns even though the unit is identical.

A public Time Square 5 case shows why consumption should be kept separate from the money figure. In June 2026, a studio resident posted a bill image; commenters read 673 kWh of electricity and 16 m³ of water from it, and the poster confirms living in Time Square 5. Independent current building pages quote USD 0.25/kWh and USD 0.60/m³. Using those rates only as a cross-check produces USD 168.25 for electricity and USD 9.60 for water, or USD 177.85 before any other line items.

That calculation is useful precisely because it is not presented as a transcription of the invoice total. The public post supports the consumption figures and separate market sources support the quoted building rates; whether USD 177.85 exactly matches the issued invoice still has to be verified from the document itself. Keeping that boundary visible prevents a plausible reconstruction from being mistaken for the original bill.

Meter role is the other key variable. With a direct supplier account, the reading belongs to the customer meter used for billing. Behind a building master account, the apartment meter may only allocate part of the property’s total use and may not represent a separate EDC or PPWSA customer. A reproducible case therefore needs either opening and closing readings or a stated consumption total, together with the billing period, unit and issuer.

There are two different supplier-side starting points. EAC material in recent years shows residential low-voltage bands of KHR 380, 480, 610 and 730 per kWh depending on monthly consumption; the EAC review covering the sector through December 2025 remains the primary current document to check. PPWSA’s live “2020 to Present” table lists domestic water bands of KHR 400, 720, 960, 1,250, 1,900 and 2,200 per m³, while commercial customers follow a separate schedule ranging from KHR 950 to 2,400 per m³.

Those figures cannot simply be dropped into a condo budget. EAC schedules distinguish connection and customer types, and PPWSA explicitly changes rates by customer category. Even where a unit consumes more than 200 kWh, it is not enough to say that the apartment “should” be billed at KHR 730/kWh unless the apartment itself is documented as the relevant direct residential customer. A building behind a shared connection can follow a different route.

The 2026 market shows how visible the next layer can be. Time Square 5 is currently quoted at USD 0.25/kWh, J Tower 2 is commonly quoted at USD 0.30/kWh, and The Bridge SOHO at USD 0.24/kWh. Water is just as varied: Time Square 5 is quoted at USD 0.60/m³, most current J Tower 2 pages show USD 0.25/m³, while The Bridge uses a fixed USD 5 monthly water charge. These are building-specific disclosures with different charging logic, not Phnom Penh averages.

J Tower 2 also demonstrates the limit of relying on those disclosures. Recent IPS, ERA and realestate.com.kh pages quote USD 0.30/kWh for electricity, yet a CAM Realty unit page shows USD 0.25/kWh; water appears at both USD 0.25 and USD 0.30/m³ across current or recently crawled pages. The responsible response is not to choose the most convenient number. The public sources conflict, so a dated building rule is required for a transaction-level conclusion.

Time Square 5 provides a longer chain than a listing alone. Multiple building pages repeat USD 0.25/kWh and USD 0.60/m³, while a resident’s public bill discussion identifies 673 kWh and 16 m³. Multiplying those values yields USD 168.25 and USD 9.60 respectively. This is a reproducible reconstruction using real reported consumption from the same building, but it still does not prove that those were the only lines on the issued invoice or that the reconstructed USD 177.85 was its printed final total.

That is the point where a tariff becomes an apartment charge: establish the external account category, the building rule, consumption for the same period, the applied rate and any additional lines. If one layer comes only from a listing, the result should be labelled a reconstruction or scenario. Once every layer is tied together by an authorised document package, it becomes evidence of the charge for that particular apartment.

The strongest public case located is Time Square 5. The table separates the supplier benchmark, the building’s currently disclosed rates, consumption from a resident-shared bill and the arithmetic cross-check; the reconstructed total is not presented as the invoice’s printed total.

Additional line items need to stay separate from variable utility consumption. Phnom Penh listings show materially different structures even among modern condos. Time Square 5 rental pages describe management as included while car parking at USD 60 and motorbike parking at USD 10 per month are separate. Those charges matter to the household budget, but they do not become part of the electricity or water rate.

The Bridge SOHO uses a different structure. A realestate.com.kh unit page lists management at USD 180 every three months, electricity at USD 0.24/kWh, a USD 50 minimum prepaid electricity top-up, a USD 100 electricity deposit, water at USD 5 per month and car parking at USD 50. The top-up and deposit are particularly important to distinguish from consumption: they affect cash flow without proving that the resident used USD 50 or USD 100 worth of power that month.

J Tower 2 adds another variation. Recent rental pages often show management included, while a current sale/rental listing on realestate.com.kh states a separate management fee of USD 163.80 per month; car parking is commonly quoted at USD 50–70. These are recurring occupancy or ownership costs, but they should not be folded into a utility bill unless the actual building document bills them together.

Backup generation is similar. J Tower 2 listings describe standby power as a building feature, but that does not establish a monthly “generator fee.” A separate generator allocation belongs in the calculation only when the invoice or management rule names it. Otherwise an amenity has been turned into an invented charge.

Currency needs the same discipline. EAC and PPWSA publish supplier rates in KHR while many condo pages quote internal rates in US dollars. Comparing the economic spread requires a dated exchange rate or the biller’s actual conversion rule. Without one, showing both currencies separately is more accurate than hiding a conversion. The calculator therefore starts at zero and only evaluates the user’s documented inputs in a single currency.

An owner or resident invoice matters not because it contains a large total, but because it can join pieces that property listings normally separate. One document may establish the billing period, measured consumption, applied rate, additional lines and final amount. When those elements are legible and the arithmetic reconciles, it becomes evidence of how one unit was charged in one period.

The public Time Square 5 case is materially stronger than a listing alone. The poster confirms living in the building, while discussion of the bill image identifies 673 kWh and 16 m³. Separately, CAM Realty repeatedly publishes USD 0.25/kWh and USD 0.60/m³ for Time Square 5. Together, those sources allow the variable charges to be reconstructed and show how a high bill can result from both the rate and unusually high measured use.

There is still an important evidence boundary. Social-media comments are not a management document, allegations in the thread about overcharging or theft are not adopted as fact, and a single bill cannot establish typical studio consumption. Without directly reading and preserving the original invoice fields, the reconstructed USD 177.85 should not be described as the exact printed final amount or as proof that no other line item existed.

One invoice is not a building average either. The same thread contains an anecdote about roughly USD 40 of electricity for a relative in a two-bedroom Time Square 5 unit, while other participants report very different amounts. That is useful evidence of variation, not a sample from which to calculate a mean. Air-conditioning use, appliances, floor area, billing period and equipment condition all differ.

An invoice also does not reveal the legal or economic nature of a gap with EAC or PPWSA. If an internal building rate exceeds a supplier residential band, the external customer category and building rules are still needed before describing the difference as a markup, profit or improper charge. What the current evidence can establish is the disclosed unit rate and reported consumption; the reason for the difference requires another document.

Republishing the underlying bill image would need a separate safe evidence package: permission to use it plus removal of the owner or occupant name, unit or account number, QR or barcode, contact details, bank information and other identifiers. Until then, the Time Square 5 post is best treated as a linked public validation case rather than copied onto NovAsia.

For the strongest version of KH-191, the remaining step is still an authorised anonymised invoice supplied by an owner or management company. That would allow the page to lock the billing period, consumption, rate, additions and final total into one controlled evidence chain instead of relying on a public cross-check.