Why is Tulum paying higher power bills than the rest of Quintana Roo?

A citizen petition to lower the Tulum electricity tariff has passed 1,000 verified signatures, reviving a long-standing complaint over the high power bills residents face across the municipality.

The petition, titled "Ayuda a cambiar la tarifa de CFE en Tulum de Tarifa 1B a 1C" and started by resident Alex Monroy, calls on the Tulum city government and the local water and sanitation utility, CAPA, to formally ask the Comisión Federal de Electricidad to move the municipality from tariff 1B to tariff 1C. On paper, it is a single letter change. In practice, it decides how much electricity a household can use before it loses its government subsidy.

For a town on the Caribbean coast, where air conditioning and fans run for most of the year, that threshold separates a manageable bill from one that climbs to several times its usual size. Households that pass the subsidized limits are moved to the Doméstica de Alto Consumo rate, known as DAC, which removes the subsidy and charges far more per kilowatt hour. That shift is the mechanism behind the increases many families have described this summer.

A petition gains momentum

Monroy's petition set a modest formal goal and has already blown past it, collecting more than a thousand verified signatures on Change.org. Its argument is direct. Tulum, the petition states, meets the conditions to qualify for tariff 1C, and residents there pay more than neighbors in other parts of Quintana Roo who already sit in that bracket.

The document is addressed to local authorities rather than to CFE directly, because a reclassification does not begin at the counter where people pay their bills. It has to be requested through official channels and backed by data, which is why the petition presses the Ayuntamiento de Tulum and CAPA to take up the case. Residents on social media have reported bills jumping from around 1,700 pesos to more than 7,000 in a single cycle, though those individual accounts have not been independently verified.

How the Tulum electricity tariff works

CFE sorts domestic customers into tariffs based on the average summer temperature of each locality. Hotter places receive higher lettered tariffs with more generous subsidized limits, on the logic that people in extreme heat cannot avoid running cooling equipment. Tariff 1B corresponds to areas averaging around 28 degrees Celsius. Tariff 1C applies to hotter zones and comes with higher consumption thresholds before the subsidy falls away.

The practical effect is in the limits. Under 1B, the basic and intermediate blocks are smaller, so a household reaches the ceiling faster. Once a home's rolling average consumption crosses the high consumption line, it lands in DAC and stays there until that average drops back down. A single hot bimester does not trigger the penalty on its own, since CFE measures a twelve-month moving average, but a run of heavy summer cycles can be enough to tip a family over. The gap is steep. Where subsidized blocks are billed at a fraction of the real cost, the DAC rate runs several times higher, which is how a bill that once sat near a thousand pesos can suddenly read in the thousands.

A gap with the rest of Quintana Roo

The comparison to other municipalities is the heart of the grievance. In 2017, after years of pressure from residents and state legislators, Benito Juárez, which covers Cancún, along with Cozumel and Isla Mujeres, secured a reclassification from tariff 1C to the still more favorable 1D. Officials at the time estimated that more than 300,000 users would benefit. Playa del Carmen mounted its own push to shift from 1B to 1C in 2019.

Seen against that backdrop, the Tulum campaign reads less as an isolated demand and more as the latest chapter in a regional pattern. Cities across Quintana Roo have argued, one after another, that their classifications lag behind the heat their residents actually live with. Tulum's petition frames the town as the one still waiting.

A complaint with deep roots

Frustration with CFE billing in Tulum is not new. Local reporting documented collective complaints over high charges as far back as 2017 and 2018, when groups of residents organized and filed a joint grievance with the consumer protection agency Profeco. Some of those cases were resolved. The underlying tariff question was not, and it has resurfaced each time the hottest months push consumption and bills upward.

What has changed is the tool. A verified online petition gives the complaint a visible tally and a single address, and crossing the thousand signature mark gives organizers a number to put in front of officials.

What happens next

A reclassification is not a quick administrative fix. It requires meteorological justification and review by the energy regulator, and the strongest past cases in Quintana Roo advanced only when the state congress or municipal governments carried them forward. The petition is a starting point, a way to demonstrate public support, not a decision.

The open questions now are whether Tulum's city government takes up the request, whether CFE acknowledges it, and how long any review would take. Until then, residents heading into the peak of the hot season are watching their meters and their bills, and waiting to see whether the pressure turns into a formal filing.

Should Tulum press for a reclassification to tariff 1C, and have your own electricity bills climbed this year? Join the conversation and share your perspective with us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetulumtimes.