What does a heat pump clothes dryer cost to run?

Run the numbers on your own use

Change any of these and the figures update. The defaults are the typical case described above; your rate is the input that moves the answer most.

Why this is lower than the number you will see elsewhere

Almost every published answer to this question multiplies the rating on the label by the hours the appliance is switched on. For a heat pump clothes dryer that gives 432 kWh a year, or $79.

Runs longer at much lower power. Total energy is what matters, not the time.

The arithmetic, step by step

Nothing here is hidden, so you can check it or change it. Working in the order the formula runs:

1. 900 W — what it draws while it is actually drawing. This is the rating on the plate.
2. × 90% — the share of its in-service time it is really pulling that. Runs longer at much lower power. Total energy is what matters, not the time.
   That gives 810 W averaged across the hours it is on.
3. × 1.6 hours a day × 300 days — One load most days. Cycles take roughly half again as long as a vented dryer.
   810 × 1.6 × 300 ÷ 1,000 = 389 kWh a year.
4. + standby — 1 W for the other 22.4 hours a day, which is 6.7 kWh a year. People leave this out and it is not always small.
5. × 18.34¢ — the US average residential rate for June 2026.
   396 kWh × 18.34¢ = $73 a year.

Change any assumption in the calculator above and every figure on this page moves with it. The two that matter most are your rate, which varies 4× across the country, and the hours — the duty cycle is a property of the appliance, but the hours are a property of you.

How sensitive is that number?

A single figure invites more confidence than it deserves. Here is the same appliance under assumptions either side of the default, so you can see how much of the answer is the appliance and how much is the guess about how you use it.

Everything else held at the default. The spread here is the honest error bar on the headline figure.

What it costs per hour, day and month

At 18.34¢ per kWh, the US residential average for June 2026.

The thing worth knowing

It takes longer and still costs less, which is the point people find hardest to believe. It reuses its own heat instead of exhausting it, and it does not push heated indoor air out of the building.

What it costs in your state

The appliance is the same everywhere; the rate is not. Running this heat pump clothes dryer costs $209 a year in Hawaii and $52 in Nevada — a difference of 4×.

Cost of running one heat pump clothes dryer for a year, by state. Residential average price, EIA June 2026.

Other laundry costs

• Electric clothes dryer

  $125 a year

  One load most days.

• Washing machine

  $18 a year

  One cold-water load most days.

• Clothes iron

  $3.81 a year

  Half an hour, about twice a week.

Questions

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A, June 2026. U.S. Government work, public domain.

How every figure on this page is computed · Where the data comes from