Argentine households face new rounds of significant tariff increases for electricity, gas, and water from January 2026, as the government implements a fiscal adjustment strategy, modifies subsidy schemes, and seeks to ensure the economic sustainability of public services.
Argentina is ushering in 2026 with a substantial increase in public service tariffs, a move confirmed by official sources, which includes adjustments to electricity bills, particularly affecting the City of Buenos Aires and the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area (AMBA, in Spanish), and other basic services such as gas and water supply, impacting directly the purchasing power of a population already burdened by inflation and stagnant wages.
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The affectations also include public transport, rents, private health insurance and fuels, as part of an economic policy that prioritizes fiscal adjustment and the targeting of subsidies.
The Argentinean National Government has announced a pivotal change to the existing tariff segmentation scheme that will replaced the the existing model with a new classification system, streamlining residential users into just two categories. Furthermore, subsidized consumption blocks will vary according to the season, with these modifications officially taking effect from January 2, 2026.
These increases do not yet include the elimination of energy subsidies announced by the national Government, a measure that could lead to double-digit increases, especially in gas.
Electricity services will have a 2.31%- 2.24% increase in a new scheme of Targeted Energy Subsidies, which sets as a limit of access to subsidies a family income equivalent to three Minimum Expenditure Basket (MEB).
Natural gas, for its part, will have an increase of 0.53% on the value, together with an adjustment in the fixed charges that will raise tickets between 2% and 3%.
The water service will experience one of the greatest impacts: the Government authorized a rate of 16% for the first four months of 2026, applied in a staggered way with 4% monthly between January and April.
Bus and train fares are set to rise by 4.5%, which represents a substantial increase. Rents, regulated under the recently repealed law, will undergo an annual update of 36.39%, adjusted by the Rental Contracts Index (ICL), which reverses a downward trend observed in previous months.
Private health continues its upward trajectory since the Javier Milei’s Government deregulated the sector have consistently faced monthly fee increases that exceed the inflation rate. In January 2026 major private medical companies have already announced that fees will increase by between 2.2 and 2.9%, an adjustment that will also apply to co-payments.
This scenario unfolds following the approval of the 2026 Budget, which projects an annual inflation of 10.1% and includes significant cuts in areas like Science and Education.
While the salaries of most workers remain suppressed, with collective bargaining agreements often not approved if they surpass inflation metrics, the tariffs increase restricts disposable income available for internal consumption for the majority of the population.
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