Gas in Slovakia will become more expensive in a few days. The new decision of the Office for the Regulation of Network Industries (ÚRSO) increases the fees for its transport from May. It turns out that the pressure in the gas industry continues to spill over into the domestic market after the stoppage of transit through Ukraine. Although the change will first affect companies and suppliers, it may ultimately affect regular customers as well. Even for the company Eustream, which transports gas, it is true that the big profits from Russian transit are a thing of the past.
At the so-called domestic point, i.e. for gas that goes to the Slovak market, the fee for transporting gas through pipelines in our territory will increase by almost 33 euros from May – from 328.50 euros to 361.35 euros. This data is the most important for Slovakia, as it is not gas that just flows through the country, but a raw material intended for domestic customers and companies.
However, it should be added that the transportation itself makes up only a small part of the resulting gas price. Even according to Eustream, it is only a few percent, while the price of gas as a commodity is still the deciding factor. At the same time, the company initially requested that the fees be increased by more than 70 percent, but the regulator finally approved only an approximately ten percent increase.
The company argues that the current setup no longer corresponds to the new situation after a major transit outage. While huge volumes of gas once flowed through Slovakia to Europe and the state company collected fees for the use of its infrastructure from foreign companies, today the reality is completely different and the costs of operating the network are calculated for a significantly smaller flow. This is also why Eustream says that it takes note of the approved price increase, but does not consider it sufficient.
Impact on households
The higher fees set by ÚRSO will primarily affect large companies that consume raw materials in bulk, as well as heating plants. They are the ones who buy gas as an important input, and every price increase in the chain will sooner or later be reflected in their costs. As for households, they will feel the indirect impact of the changes. In this case, it is simply true that if heat distributors or companies dependent on gas supplies have higher costs, part of the pressure may be transferred to people over time.
This is also confirmed by ÚRSO, although at the same time it claims that it prevented even greater growth. “It is true that ÚRSO prevented an extreme rise in gas prices and decided on new prices for gas transportation, which will increase by 10 percent at individual points of the transmission network, while Eustream requested an increase of more than 70 percent due to the stoppage of Russian gas transit. Since this is one of the items included in the total final price of gas, it will also have a partial impact on next year’s gas prices for households. The goal of ÚRSO was to maintain affordable gas prices for companies and According to the current legislation, the Ministry of Economy was a party to the proceedings,” said the spokesman of the regulator, Radoslav Igaz.
In practice, this does not mean that people’s gas bills will automatically increase by leaps and bounds from May. Rather, the point is that higher transport fees increase costs in the entire chain, and these may be partly reflected in the final invoices when prices are adjusted further. This can be most noticeable especially where households take heat from heating plants or are dependent on suppliers who will gradually include more expensive transportation in the prices.
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However, it is important for people that the state continues to provide energy assistance this year. The government has approved direct assistance with energy prices for the entire year 2026, and for both electricity and gas, assistance is continuously provided directly in household invoices – for heat through energy vouchers. Compensation for increased electricity and gas prices is automatically taken into account in advance payments from suppliers for households entitled to assistance.
The end of the “golden hen”
For Eustream, the long years of Russian gas transit were a “golden hen”. While tens of billions of cubic meters of gas flowed further west through Slovakia, the company was able to earn hundreds of millions of euros from this business. For example, in the accounting year ending in July 2019, it reported a net profit of 386.6 million euros, and its transmission system then transported 66.47 billion cubic meters of gas. In the last available accounting year, which ended in July 2025, the company already reported a profit after tax of just 47.73 million euros, and the volume of transport fell to 10.23 billion cubic meters. In its annual report, Eustream itself recalls that in the pre-crisis years, transport regularly exceeded 60 billion cubic meters per year.
That is why the company claims that the new tariffs approved by the regulator are still primal for it. Eustream therefore says that the approved amount of fees does not correspond to the changed operating conditions of the strategic infrastructure and may have a negative impact on the economic stability of the company. After the end of the big transit, the carrier’s economy of operation, which it had been set up for for many years, fell apart.
The company also describes it very specifically. “Transport has fallen to less than one-tenth of the original volumes, which also has a fundamental impact on the resources needed to operate the network. As a result of the unfavorable situation, we were forced to proceed with large-scale mass layoffs and take further optimization measures at the infrastructure level as well,” the company said. The once extremely profitable transit business has suddenly become a company that talks about savings, optimization and layoffs. According to his own words, he is laying off about a fifth of his employees today.
At the same time, Eustream denies that its tariffs are the main culprit of high gas bills. The company reminds that the price increase for one megawatt hour is 19 cents. She also adds that, according to her, the problem does not lie in Slovak transport, but mainly in the price of the commodity itself. “On the contrary, the availability of possibilities to import natural gas to Slovakia from all directions, which are here thanks to Eustream’s investments, means not only energy security, but ultimately also more opportunities to purchase the commodity more advantageously,” the company concluded.
