Venezuela electricity law: tariffs in euros, arbitration, and who guarantees payment

Unanimously, Venezuela's National Assembly passed the reform of the Organic Law of the Electric System and Service on November 10, 2026, and sent it to the Executive to be signed into law. For anyone weighing an investment in generation, the reform answers three questions: at what price they sell, for how long, and where they can file a claim. In what is known of the text, which is not yet in the Gazette, it does not answer the fourth, the one that decides cash flow: who guarantees they get paid.

What the law already answers

Generation is no longer the State's alone: it will be carried out by the state operator and by mixed and private companies "that hold the corresponding authorization," according to the passed text quoted by the EFE news agency. Private concessions may run for up to 25 years, granted by the Ministry of Electric Energy when generation exceeds 50 megawatts or affects public-domain property. Disputes can go to Venezuelan courts or to "alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, including mediation and arbitration."

The price has an anchor too. Jorge Rodríguez, president of the Assembly, confirmed that tariffs will be indexed to the highest-value currency published by the Central Bank of Venezuela, which as of November 11 is the euro: 1,007.96 bolívars, versus 901.62 per dollar, in the table with a November 11 value date. There will be, he said, "a subsidy regime" for those who because of their income cannot pay the full tariff, "as industrial users can."

Oil operators get their own chapter. They must secure their supply through self-generation, cogeneration or contracts with third parties, and they need no authorization to generate for their internal networks "unless they interconnect." In that case, authorization comes from the Superintendency the law creates, and their surplus is channeled through the National Management Center, with priority for the oil industry's critical loads.

Who sets the price

Having an anchor does not say who sets the tariff. On the first day of the second reading, October 22, the Assembly approved that the ministry must "set tariffs together with the finance area." On November 3 it created the Superintendency, with "technical, financial and management autonomy" on paper and a head "appointed by the national Executive"; it sets grid-access tolls. And on the 10th Rodríguez said it is the regulations that will develop, "through the superintendency," the subsidized tariff.

Those are three pieces, and until the Gazette is out it is not clear which one governs.

Nor is there a public threshold for choosing a supplier. Rodríguez speaks of private companies serving "above all large consumers," industries and shopping centers. The only threshold on record in what was approved is two megawatts, and it serves another purpose: it requires those users to have energy-saving plans. In Colombia, the 1994 law set two megawatts as the limit for unregulated users, and the regulator lowered it in stages to 0.1 megawatts from 2000; in February 2025 that market, the one of large industries, was 31.75% of demand.

The missing piece: getting paid

If a private generator sells to industry, it is paid by a customer paying the full tariff.

If it sells to the system, what has been published so far does not say who pays it or with what guarantee. The law gives it a right: what was approved on November 3 grants private companies "a regulated tariff remuneration" and access to the grids by paying tolls. A right to be paid is not a guarantee of payment.

The distinction is not theoretical. Scott Strazik, chief executive of GE Vernova, said on October 28 that the company will not carry out physical repairs on Venezuela's grid until it receives payment, after finishing its planning and lining up contractors.

Ecuador offers the closest yardstick, because it expanded private generation in the middle of power cuts and has almost two years of results. It cannot tell what will happen in Venezuela: it shows which instruments the other country needed after the law.

There are limits to the analogy, and they are worth naming.

Ecuador is dollarized, so its tariff did not need an exchange-rate anchor; Venezuela solves that with the official euro rate. Ecuador had a working regulator; Venezuela creates one with this law. And Venezuela has a key Ecuador lacks.

OFAC General License 48D, successor to the 48A we analyzed in March, authorizes U.S. companies to supply goods and services to generate, transmit and distribute electricity in Venezuela. It sets two conditions: their contracts with the Venezuelan government must settle disputes in the United States, the United Kingdom, France or Singapore, and payments to blocked entities go into the Treasury custody account. And it expressly excludes forming new companies in Venezuela to generate electricity. For a U.S. investor, the 25-year concession the law offers falls outside that general license.

What does carry over is the sequence: the law opens, the permits arrive, and private money waits for someone to guarantee payment.

Who pays

Industry and retailers pay: according to Rodríguez, the full indexed tariff falls to them. So do oil operators, which bear the cost of power for their fields. And Corpoelec, which loses its exclusivity over the customers paying that full tariff and keeps those who receive subsidies. How much that subsidy costs does not appear in the official notes; the law orders the Executive to set up a fund to finance it within a year, and the Assembly's note does not say with what resources.

With demand at highs, the urgency has numbers. Demand reached 16,424 megawatts in September, the highest peak since 2017 according to the Ministry of Electric Energy, and the June earthquake knocked 800 megawatts out of the central region, according to Corpoelec. The official plan promises to recover more than 1,300 megawatts before December, 450 of them in three Termozulia units. Corpoelec agreed with Karpowership on two barges for 200 megawatts for Zulia, with no public timeline.