Frequently Asked Questions

Payments may be made 24 hours a day online, or by phone (562) 570-5700.

You may also pay in person at Long Beach City Hall Lobby at 411 W. Ocean Boulevard using cash, cashier's check, money order, check, or Visa or MasterCard credit or debit cards.

It is important to note that customers facing a pending turn-off for non-payment are still responsible for taking their payments directly to City Hall at 411 W. Ocean Blvd. prior to the payment deadline in order to ensure there is no interruption of utility services.

Please send your payment – along with your account number – via check to: 

City of Long Beach
P.O. Box 630
Long Beach, CA 90842-0001

To avoid having your utilities shutoff, please pay your bill in full by the due date.

If you are having difficulty paying on time, qualified customers may receive direct payment assistance to pay down their balance. You can learn more at lbutilities.org/billhelp.

Contact us now to set up a payment plan that works for you to pay off your debt. You can sign up online at lbutilities.org/billhelp or set up your payment plan online through the MyUtilityPortal.

For any additional questions or concerns, call us at (562) 570-5700 Monday through Friday, 7:30 AM – 4:30 PM.

Your utility bill is considered past due if it is not paid within 15 days of the date prepared. 

You can get a copy of your statement online , or request a computer-generated copy of your bill by calling Utilities Customer Service at (562) 570-5700.

Yes. The exception is if you have satisfactorily established credit with an existing City of Long Beach utility account in the last 12 months. In this instance, a deposit requirement will be waived. To establish credit, you must not carry a balance forward from one billing period to the next. Security deposits are held on your account for a 12-month period. If at the end of the 12-month period your bills have been paid promptly, the deposit will be credited to your account.

The baseline allowance is the first tier of gas usage for residential customers, which is charged at the lowest rate. Any usage above the baseline allowance is billed at the higher non-baseline rate.

The City of Long Beach provides an additional baseline allowance for eligible residential customers who require use of natural gas for certain medical conditions. To receive this additional allowance, a doctor must verify your medical condition. You can call Utilities Customer Service at (562) 570-5700 to request a form or download an application at www.lbutilities.org/billhelp .

To better understand your bill, you may need to assess your utility usage. Below are examples of what may contribute to a higher cost on your monthly bill.

Review “Historical Usage”

If Long Beach Utilities has previous year’s usage data for the same billing period, it will be displayed here on your bill.

• Gas shows your total usage and your average daily usage in therms.
• Water shows your total usage in 100 cu. ft. and your daily usage in gallons.

Alternatively, you can view a three-year comparison of your usage by clicking the “My Comparison” link on the Usage page of the web portal .

If your usage is comparable to last year, a high bill may be attributed to a rate changes.

• View current gas rates .
• View current water rates .

IMPORTANT NOTE:

If your natural gas usage is higher than the previous year’s billing period, please consider the following circumstances:

• Have you had new gas appliances installed?
• Did you have visitors or did the number of people living in your household increase from last year?
• Was there an illness in the household that may have required increased gas usage for heating or water heating?
• Have you checked your pool heater timer?
• Was the usage lower than normal? This may indicate that your meter was read or estimated incorrectly last month. If your meter read is low one month, an accurate meter read the next month will result in a higher-than-normal bill.
• Were you on vacation during the corresponding time period last year?

If your water usage is higher than the corresponding time period, a year ago:

• Do you have a dripping faucet or leaking toilet? Even a small leak can increase your water bill considerably.
• Do you hear water running at night when all your appliances are off? This may indicate an underground break in your water line. A break in your hot water line will also cause a higher gas bill.
• Has the weather been unseasonably warm and you have been doing more outside watering? It may be that it was cooler and rainy the same time period last year and you were not outside watering yet.
• Did you have visitors or did the number of people living in your household increase from last year?
• Did you install new landscaping or a pool and/or spa? Did you refill your swimming pool?

You may submit a Bill Review request via the link in the Customer Center section of the web portal , or you may call Utilities Customer Service at (562) 570-5700. A Customer Service Representative will assist you in submitting a bill review request.

In order to ensure accurate bills, when the meter reads are entered into the computer, the system automatically flags accounts where the amount of gas used is either much higher or much lower than normal usage. These accounts are then reviewed manually to determine if the usage seems unreasonable. If the account suddenly varies widely from a steady pattern, the account is further investigated.

After the meter read has been verified, and a field inspection completed, if you still feel your meter is inaccurate, you can request that the meter be tested. After the read has been verified, and Long Beach Utilities has completed a field investigation, a $35.00 meter test deposit is required to have your meter tested. The law requires the meter to be accurate to within two percent. If it is within the two percent parameter, or if it is registering low, you lose the demand test deposit. Should the meter read high by more than two percent, your bill will be adjusted for the previous six months, and you will receive a refund of your demand test deposit.

For more information, please visit LBUtilities.org.

You can start new service, stop service, or transfer service to a new address via the respective links in the web portal, or via the 'Moving Services' option in the web portal menu. Alternatively, you may call Utilities Customer Service at (562) 570-5700 to establish your new service, stop service, or transfer your existing service address.