Gas vs electric dryer in the USA: cost per load

Against a standard electric dryer, yes, in all 50 states and DC: by 9¢ to 45¢ a load. The gap is smallest in Arkansas, Florida and Louisiana and largest in California, Maine and Connecticut.

The reason is in the energy. A standard electric dryer makes all its heat from electricity, 2.15 kWh a load. A gas dryer makes its heat from gas and uses electricity only for the motor and controls, so the price of a kWh moves its cost much less. Where electricity is dear the electric dryer falls far behind; where electricity is cheap and gas is dear the two come close.

A heat pump dryer changes the answer. It uses 0.80 kWh a load, and it costs less per load than gas in 35 states.

Look behind the machine. An electric dryer has one thick cord with a large 240‑volt plug of three or four prongs, and nothing else. A gas dryer has an ordinary plug and a second connection: a gas pipe with a shut-off valve and a flexible line to the machine.

Your own bill decides it: the state figure is an average, not your tariff. To redo the sum, find the price of one more unit on each bill: the line in cents per kWh on the electricity bill, and the line in dollars per therm on the gas bill. Some gas bills count in CCF, a hundred cubic feet, which is about 1.04 therms. Leave out the fixed monthly charge: you pay it whether or not the dryer runs.

At US average prices a gas dryer saves about $61 a year over a standard electric one, so switching pays only if the change costs little; connecting gas for a dryer alone does not pay (below).

Take the yearly saving from your state's row ("Gas saves", gas against a standard electric dryer), or for another pair the difference of the two figures a load times 283 loads, and the extra cost from your own quote. The grid gives the years until the saving has paid for the change.

Without a gas main, a gas dryer runs on propane from a tank. Per unit of heat, propane costs more than natural gas in all 38 states where EIA publishes both prices. The propane column prices the same gas dryer burning the same heat per load, 0.0790 gallons; that is our assumption, not a certified propane figure.

It is the cheapest of the three to run in 35 of 51 (50 states and DC), and it uses 63% less electricity than a standard electric dryer.

A heat pump dryer reuses its warm air instead of blowing it outside, so it needs no vent: all 21 certified models are ventless. They use a median of 0.80 kWh a load against 2.15 for a standard electric dryer.

In the certified energy test the median cycle takes 69 minutes in a heat pump dryer, 70 in a vented electric one and 70 in a gas one.

So on the test cycle a heat pump dryer is not slower. These are manufacturers' certified figures on one standard load, not measurements in homes, and there are far fewer heat pump models to choose from. It is the answer where electricity is the only fuel, where there is no way to vent, and in the states where it beats gas in the table above.

With solar, an electric or heat pump dryer gets cheaper to run and gas does not, as long as your utility credits surplus power at less than the retail price.

A load dried while your panels produce more than the house is using costs you what the utility would have credited for that surplus. Where surplus is credited at the full retail price, nothing changes. To see your own case, put your credit rate in place of the electricity price in the formula below.

Energy per load comes from the ENERGY STAR certified standard-size models: the median combined energy factor (pounds of laundry dried per kWh of energy) of 196 gas dryers is 3.48, of 357 vented electric dryers 3.93, of 21 heat pump dryers 10.5. The federal test dries a load of 8.45 pounds, and the energy per load in kWh is 8.45 divided by that factor.

For a gas dryer the factor counts gas and electricity together. We split it: 0.281 kWh of electricity while running plus 0.0305 kWh of standby per load; the rest is gas, at 3,412 BTU per kWh and 100,000 BTU per therm.

A year is 283 loads, the figure in the federal test. The test moves to 236 loads on 1 March 2028, and the Department of Energy's field estimate is 213 loads a year, each larger than the test load. At those counts the yearly figures at US prices are $40, $91 and $34, or $36, $82 and $31.

Prices are each state's residential average for the 12 months to Jul 2026: electricity as revenue divided by sales, gas weighted by volume. Left out: your own tariff, time-of-use rates, the dryer's purchase price and installation, repairs, and the heated or cooled room air a vented dryer pushes outside.

How the state prices are worked out: how the prices are calculated.