Forget Hydro-Québec when you move and you keep paying for electricity in an apartment you no longer live in. The contract stays in your name until the day you terminate it, the termination is never retroactive, and at 2026 rates, up 3% for residential customers since April 1, that mistake compounds every billing cycle. The fix takes a few minutes online and costs nothing, but only if you know that the government’s one-stop address service does not handle this one.
Why doesn’t the government address service cover Hydro-Québec?
The Service québécois de changement d’adresse updates seven provincial organizations in one free session, including the SAAQ and the RAMQ. Hydro-Québec is not one of the seven. Your electricity account is a customer contract, not a government file, so it has its own moving process. Plenty of Montrealers finish the government session, feel done, and find out weeks later that their old apartment is still billing them.
How do you transfer your Hydro-Québec service when you move?
Use the moving tool in your Hydro-Québec Customer Space. One request ends the contract at your current address on your departure date and starts service at the new one on your arrival date. Online, it is free. Through a representative at 514 385-7252, a $25 fee plus tax is added to your first bill. The meters are smart meters read remotely, so no technician visit is needed and your final bill reflects the actual reading up to the termination date.
When should you notify Hydro-Québec of your move?
As soon as you know your new address. There is no fixed deadline for residential customers, but two things argue for doing it early. First, Hydro-Québec can cut power without notice at an address where no contract is in effect, and nobody wants to discover that on moving night with a fridge full of food. Second, around July 1, when tens of thousands of Quebec households move on the same day, the phone lines are saturated and the online tool becomes the only sane route. The tool can also send you a reminder email about a week before your date.
Quick answers
How much does a Hydro-Québec change of address cost?
Nothing, if you do it yourself in the online Customer Space. Do it through a customer service representative by phone and a $25 fee plus tax lands on your first bill at the new address. Same service, same result, $25 difference.
What happens if you forget to close your Hydro-Québec account when you move?
The contract stays in effect and you remain responsible for it, which means you keep paying for electricity at an apartment you no longer live in. Termination takes effect the day Hydro-Québec receives your request, or a later date you choose. It is never retroactive.
Does the Service québécois de changement d’adresse update Hydro-Québec?
No. The government’s one-stop service covers seven organizations: the SAAQ, the RAMQ, Revenu Québec, Retraite Québec, the CNESST, Élections Québec and the Ministère de l’Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale. Hydro-Québec is not on the list, so the move has to be declared separately in your Hydro-Québec Customer Space.
Hydro is the utility step in a paperwork sequence that also includes the SAAQ address change with its 30-day legal deadline and the RAMQ update that keeps your renewal notice reaching you. Our 30-day moving checklist puts all of it in order so nothing keeps billing the old address.
