How to Remove a Switch Hold on Electricity Service

To remove a switch hold on your electricity service in Texas, you need to clear whatever triggered it: pay the unpaid balance, finish the deferred payment plan, settle the back-billing and repair charges from meter tampering, or submit new-occupant documentation if the hold belongs to someone who lived there before you. Once the obligation is satisfied, your retail electric provider (REP) must request removal from the transmission and distribution utility (TDU) by noon the next business day, and the TDU must lift the hold the same day it receives that request.¹

Find Out Why the Hold Is There

Before you can clear a switch hold, you need to know who placed it and why. Call your current REP first. They can confirm whether they put the hold on your account and tell you the exact amount owed. If you’re trying to start new service at an address and the move-in keeps getting rejected, the hold likely belongs to the previous occupant’s REP or was placed by the TDU after a tampering finding. The REP you’re trying to sign up with can usually confirm the hold exists on the meter, even without details about the underlying debt.

For a tampering hold, the TDU that serves your area is the one with the file. Your REP can tell you which TDU to contact if you don’t already know.

Paying Off an Unpaid Balance

This is the most common cause and the most direct fix. Pay the full outstanding amount to your current or former REP. Partial payments don’t trigger the removal obligation, so if you can’t cover the balance in full, you’ll either need to negotiate a deferred payment plan or stay on the hold until you can.

Once you settle the balance by 10:00 p.m. on a business day, the REP has until noon the following business day to send the removal request to the TDU. If the TDU receives it by 1:00 p.m., the hold comes off by 8:00 p.m. that same day.¹

Save proof of payment. A receipt, a confirmation email, or a bank statement showing the cleared transaction all work. If the REP delays submitting the removal, that documentation becomes your evidence in a complaint.

Finishing a Deferred Payment Plan

If you’re on a deferred payment plan, the switch hold stays until the entire deferred balance is paid. There is no partial-removal option. When you make the final payment, the REP must notify you that the obligation is satisfied and submit the removal request to the TDU on the same day it confirms payment.¹

Your REP was required to give you a written explanation before you signed the plan, telling you that you can’t buy electricity from another company until you’ve paid the total deferred balance, and that if your service is disconnected for nonpayment while the hold is active, you’ll have to pay your current provider to be reconnected. If you never received that disclosure, that’s a potential basis for a complaint.¹

If paying the balance in full is possible, that avoids the hold entirely. The deferred plan trades short-term affordability for months of being locked into your current provider.

Clearing a Meter Tampering Hold

Meter tampering holds are placed by the TDU directly, not by a REP, on the same day the TDU determines tampering occurred. The hold blocks both provider switches and new move-in transactions.²

To clear it, you have to pay two separate things: back-billed amounts for electricity used during the tampering period, and all meter repair and restoration charges. The charges vary with the extent of the tampering and the specific TDU’s tariff, so ask for an itemized breakdown before you pay. Once everything is paid, your REP notifies the TDU to lift the hold.

If someone else caused the tampering, such as a previous tenant, you don’t need to pay their charges. The new occupant process below is the path for that situation.

Clearing a Hold as a New Occupant

A switch hold is tied to the meter (your Electric Service Identifier, or ESI ID), not to a person. If you move into a home or apartment where the previous occupant left an unpaid balance or caused a tampering hold, you can clear it by proving you’re a new occupant unrelated to whoever caused the hold.

The process: your chosen REP submits a move-in request, the TDU rejects it because of the hold, and you then provide one of the following documents:²

A current lease signed by all parties
A notarized landlord affidavit confirming you’re the new tenant
Closing documents signed by buyer and seller, or the recorded deed, if you purchased the property
A certificate of occupancy naming you as the new occupant
A utility bill (gas, water, electric, or cable/internet) in your name from a different address, dated within the last two months; cell phone bills are generally not accepted

Along with the document, you’ll sign a statement affirming that you’re a new occupant and not associated with the previous one. The REP submits the package through ERCOT’s MarkeTrak system, and the TDU has four business hours to review it and decide whether to lift the hold.²

Have your documents ready before the REP submits the request. Incomplete or unclear paperwork is the main reason these get delayed.

How Long Removal Should Take

For balance and deferred-plan holds, the regulated timeline is one to two business days from when your payment clears. Pay by 10:00 p.m. on a business day; the REP submits the removal by noon the next business day; the TDU lifts it by 8:00 p.m. that day if it got the request by 1:00 p.m.¹ Pay on a Friday evening and the clock doesn’t start until Monday.

For a new-occupant tampering hold removal, the TDU has four business hours after it receives your documentation.²

After the deadline passes, verify the hold is actually gone before you try to switch. Ask the REP you want to sign up with to confirm a switch transaction can process on your ESI ID. Don’t assume.

If the Hold Doesn’t Come Off

If you’ve paid in full, finished your plan, or submitted new-occupant documentation and the hold is still there past the deadline, start with a supervisor at your REP. Keep a log: dates and times of each call, the name of each person you speak with, and what they told you.

If that doesn’t resolve it, file a complaint with the Public Utility Commission of Texas. You can submit it online through the PUCT’s Electric Complaint Form (choose “I cannot switch my electricity provider,” then “Switch hold” as the problem type) or by calling 1-888-782-8477.³ You’ll need your ESI ID, your account number, the date you paid or submitted documents, and a description of what happened. The PUCT requires that you’ve contacted the provider first and been unable to resolve it directly. The commission can order a REP to remove a hold that’s being maintained improperly, and that is the strongest lever you have.

Keep Current Bills Paid While You Wait

A switch hold does not protect you from disconnection. If you stop paying your current bills while the hold is active, your REP can still disconnect your service for nonpayment, and the hold stays on even after disconnection. That leaves you with no power, no ability to switch providers, and a required payment to your current REP to be reconnected.¹ The required deferred-payment-plan disclosure spells it out: if you’re disconnected while the hold applies, you’ll need to pay your current provider to turn the lights back on. Keep paying your ongoing bills while you work through the removal.

1
Public Utility Commission of Texas. 16 TAC 25.480 – Bill Payment and Adjustments
2
Legal Information Institute. Texas Code 16-25.126 – Adjustments Due to Non-Compliant Meters and Meter Tampering
3
Public Utility Commission of Texas. Electric Complaint Form