How much does it cost to run Christmas lights?
About $6.63 a month on the typical usage below, at the U.S. average $0.1816/kWh. Set your own rate and usage and the figure updates instantly.
LED holiday lights sip ~10–50W total; old incandescent strings can pull hundreds.
Running Christmas lights at 200W for 6 h a day costs about
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Holiday light costs come down almost entirely to one choice: LED or old-style incandescent. A big LED display might draw only 20–50W total and cost a few dollars for the whole season. The same coverage in old incandescent bulbs can pull hundreds of watts and cost many times more.
After bulb type, it's just hours: a timer that runs the display in the evening rather than around the clock cuts the bill cleanly.
What drives the cost of running Christmas lights
- Bulb type is everything — incandescent strings use roughly 10× the watts of LEDs.
- How many strings and how big the display is.
- Hours per day — dusk-to-bedtime vs. left on all night and all day.
How to cut it
- Switch to LED strings — the savings pay for the lights within a season or two.
- Put the display on a timer or smart plug so it runs only in the evening.
- Skip the always-on daytime running; nobody sees lights at noon.
Data basis
- Electricity price
- U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.B, June 2026 year to date, released 2026-08-26. Retrieved 2026-09-11. Average residential revenue per kWh. A benchmark average, not a utility tariff — it excludes the fixed charges, tiers, time-of-use windows, taxes and fuel adjustments on a real bill.
- Appliance energy
- A representative running power for Christmas lights, compiled from published manufacturer specifications and public appliance-energy guidance, and presented as a typical figure with the usual range shown above. It is not a measurement of your unit, and we do not claim a single primary source for it — the nameplate on your appliance, or an hour with a plug-in energy meter, beats any typical figure we can publish.
- Usage model
- Steady load — 200W for 6 h a day
- International prices
- rounded typical household tariffs for each market, in that market's own currency unless the row says US$ equivalent. These are planning benchmarks with no single primary source; enter the per-kWh price from your own bill for an accurate figure.
- Last reviewed
- 20 August 2026. Next scheduled review 20 February 2027.
- Corrections
- Think a figure is wrong? Tell us at corrections@watt-dollar.com and see our corrections policy.
Common questions
How much does it cost to run Christmas lights per month?
On the assumption shown above — 200W for 6 h a day — Christmas lights costs about $6.63 a month, or $79.54 a year, at $0.1816/kWh. That price is the U.S. average; set your own rate and usage above and the figure updates.
How is that worked out?
Power drawn while running x hours run per day. At 200W for 6 h a day that is 1.20 kWh a day, which at $0.1816/kWh costs $0.22 a day.
How can I cut the cost of running Christmas lights?
Switch to LED strings — the savings pay for the lights within a season or two. As a worked example: running it 4.8 h a day instead of 6 h takes it from $79.54 to $63.63 a year, about $15.91 less.
Do I really pay that every year?
Only if you run it every day. Most people don't: over a typical 40-day holiday season the same usage comes to about $8.72. The annual figure assumes daily use all year.