The short version
If you are hoping a bitcoin mining rig will pay for itself in the UK, the honest answer is no, at least not on household electricity. Even the newest and most efficient machine, the Antminer S23, earns about £9.59 a day in bitcoin but burns through £22.10 of electricity, leaving you around £4,565 a year down before you count the £7,488 it costs to buy.
So what about mining bitcoin only during cheap night rates, on a time-of-use tariff where overnight power is at its cheapest? That helps, but not enough. The night rate would need to stay below 11.4p/kWh every single night, and overnight rates on a dynamic tariff only fall that far on the windiest, quietest nights of the year.
A rig running seven hours a night earns less than a third of what it could, so it takes over three times as long to pay for itself. The 2028 halving will cut its earnings in half along the way.
How SwitchInsights analysed this
Every break-even figure here is based on data gathered on 30 September 2026, combining price, power draw and mining reward for each machine. Earnings use what miners were paid that day, about 3p for each terahash of mining power (Newhedge), converted at $1.3214 to the pound. Rig prices come from Mineshop.eu, converted from euros at 0.8548 with 20% UK import VAT added. Electricity is costed at the Ofgem Q4 2026 cap of 26.32p/kWh, and the night-rate figures below are scenarios rather than quotes from any one tariff. Pool fees, standing charges and wear and tear are left out.How does a bitcoin mining rig make money?
A mining rig, sometimes called an ASIC miner, is a box of specialised chips that does one thing: it guesses the answer to a maths puzzle billions of times a second. Every ten minutes or so, whoever solves the puzzle first wins 3.125 bitcoin, and most home miners join a pool that shares those wins out according to how much guessing each machine does.
That guessing power is measured in terahashes, and each terahash earned about 3p a day at the end of September. The more terahashes a rig has the more it earns, and the more watts it draws the more it costs to run.
The bitcoin mining rigs on sale in the UK
SwitchInsights picked eight bitcoin mining rigs from Mineshop.eu, an Irish seller that ships to the UK, ranging from a £77 Bitaxe that fits in your hand to the £7,488 Antminer S23. The prices below include the 20% import VAT you pay when buying from the EU.
| Rig | Mining power | Power draw | UK price | Earns a day | Electricity a day | Needs power below |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitaxe Gamma 601 | 1.5 TH/s | 22W | £77 | £0.05 | £0.14 | 8.4p |
| NerdQaxe++ Rev6 | 6 TH/s | 100W | £308 | £0.18 | £0.63 | 7.5p |
| Avalon Nano 3S | 6 TH/s | 140W | £242 | £0.18 | £0.88 | 5.4p |
| Avalon Mini 3 (B-grade) | 37.5 TH/s | 800W | £687 | £1.13 | £5.05 | 5.9p |
| Avalon Q | 90 TH/s | 1,674W | £1,846 | £2.71 | £10.57 | 6.8p |
| WhatsMiner M61 (used, sold as-is) | 208 TH/s | 3,952W | £1,538 | £6.27 | £24.96 | 6.6p |
| Antminer S21+ | 216 TH/s | 3,456W | £2,154 | £6.51 | £21.83 | 7.9p |
| Antminer S23 | 318 TH/s | 3,498W | £7,488 | £9.59 | £22.10 | 11.4p |
Electricity is costed at the Q4 2026 price cap of 26.32p/kWh. Earnings are shown before pool fees. The WhatsMiner M61 power draw is worked out from its listed efficiency.
The last column is the one that matters, because it shows the most you could pay per kWh before a rig starts losing money. The Antminer S23 squeezes the most mining power out of each watt, so it tops the list at 11.4p, but every single rig sits well below the 26.32p most households pay today.
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Buying a home miner anyway?
Every price in the table above comes from Mineshop.eu, the Irish seller we used for this comparison. It ships to the UK and stocks the whole range, from a pocket-sized Bitaxe to the Antminer S23.
SwitchPilot partners with Mineshop.eu for home mining hardware. The link below is an affiliate link: SwitchPilot earns a commission when readers buy through it, at no extra cost to you. That commission has no influence on this analysis.
What a bitcoin mining rig costs to run at the Q4 price cap
From 1 October the price cap sets electricity at 26.32p/kWh, and VAT on household electricity has dropped to zero until 31 March 2027. Even with that tax cut, every rig in the table loses money for every hour it runs. The SwitchInsights bitcoin mining electricity cost calculator works the same sums for a rig you already own.
Take the Antminer S21+ as an example. It draws more power than a kettle left on all day, using 83kWh that costs £21.83 while earning £6.51 in bitcoin, so you would pay roughly £5,590 a year for the privilege.
Bitcoin mining at night on a cheap overnight tariff
A dynamic time-of-use tariff such as EDF FreePhase Dynamic splits the day into three price bands, and the overnight band is usually the cheapest of the three. Rigs do not mind being switched off in the morning and back on at bedtime, and smaller ones like the Avalon Q can simply go on a smart plug with a timer.
The catch is that the overnight band is not always cheap. Dynamic night rates follow the wholesale market, so they swing from close to nothing on a windy night to roughly the level of the price cap in a cold, still week. For the current published figures, see the SwitchInsights EDF FreePhase review.
The fair way to test the idea is therefore to run the sums across a range of night rates rather than one headline number. The table below shows what four of the rigs would make in a year mining only between 11pm and 6am.
| What you would make in a year, mining 11pm to 6am only | At 5p | At 13p | At 17p | At 26p |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Antminer S23 | £574 | -£150 | -£463 | -£1,312 |
| Antminer S21+ | £252 | -£463 | -£772 | -£1,611 |
| Avalon Q | £75 | -£271 | -£421 | -£827 |
| NerdQaxe++ Rev6 | £6 | -£14 | -£23 | -£47 |
Each figure is the bitcoin earned minus the night-time electricity over a full year. None of these figures includes the cost of buying the rig.
Plunge nights: the only nights that pay
Every so often, when the wind is blowing hard and demand is low, a dynamic tariff drops the overnight rate close to zero, and a rig would make a small profit. The cheapest column above is the version of the world where every night looks like that.
Those nights are rare, though. Even if the night rate averaged 5p all year round, SwitchInsights estimates an Antminer S23 would make about £574, so it would take around 13 years to pay back its £7,488 price.
Bitcoin halving 2028: the sums change again
Roughly every four years, bitcoin halves the reward miners get, and CoinWarz expects the next halving around April 2028, about 18 months from now. The reward drops from 3.125 to 1.5625 bitcoin, so unless the bitcoin price doubles or lots of miners switch off, every rig's earnings get cut in half overnight.
For the Antminer S23, that would pull its break-even point down from 11.4p to about 5.7p. In other words, any rig you buy today has roughly 18 months of full earnings before its income halves.
What about mining Ethereum or smaller cryptocurrencies?
Mining Ethereum is no longer possible, because the network switched from mining to a system called staking in September 2022. Two spin-offs, Ethereum Classic and EthereumPoW, can still be mined, but they earn a fraction of what other coins pay on the same graphics card.
To compare coins fairly, SwitchInsights looked at how much the best machine for each one earns per kWh, using live mining calculators on 1-2 October 2026. Where that figure beats what you pay for electricity, the machine covers its running costs.
| Coin | Best machine | Earns per kWh | At the 26.32p cap | At a 13p night rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin | Antminer S23 | 11.4p | Loses money | Loses money |
| Litecoin and Dogecoin | Antminer L9 | 8.9p | Loses money | Loses money |
| Monero | AMD Ryzen 9 9950X processor | 12.5p | Loses money | Roughly breaks even |
| Kaspa | Antminer KS7 | 17.2p | Loses money | Turns a profit |
| Pearl | Nvidia RTX 5090 graphics card | 63.8p | Turns a profit | Turns a profit |
Earnings come from MiningNow for the Antminer L9 and Antminer KS7, and from Hashrate.no for the RTX 5090 and Ryzen 9 9950X, on 1-2 October 2026, converted at $1.3214. All figures are before pool fees.
Kaspa mining: the one that works on night rates
An Antminer KS7 mining Kaspa earns about 17.2p for every kWh it uses, which clears a mid-teens night rate with room to spare. Run it from 11pm to 6am at 13p and you would make about £320 a year, against a price of around £2,050 including VAT.
That still means waiting more than six years to get your money back. Kaspa also trims its mining reward a little every month, so the same machine earns fewer coins as time goes on.
Pearl: profitable at the price cap, for now
Pearl is a new coin with a twist, because the work its miners do also feeds into AI calculations. It is the only coin we found that beats the price cap outright: an Nvidia RTX 5090 graphics card earns about $10.50 a day mining it, leaving roughly £4.70 a day of profit after electricity, according to Hashrate.no.
Before buying a graphics card, look at how fast those earnings are falling. Tom's Hardware reported the same card making about $33.80 a day in late April and $17.19 by the end of May, a drop of roughly two thirds in five months as more people pile in.
Monero mining UK: use a computer you already own
Monero can be mined on an ordinary computer processor, so if you already own a powerful PC, you have no hardware to buy. A Ryzen 9 9950X only earns about 12.5p per kWh, though, which loses money at the price cap and roughly breaks even on a cheap night rate.
Practical limits of a home bitcoin miner
The large industrial rigs, like the Antminer S21+, Antminer S23 and WhatsMiner M61, draw 3.5kW to 4kW, more than a normal 13A plug socket can safely handle. You would need an electrician to fit a dedicated circuit, and some sellers list the S23 for a three-phase supply that most homes do not have.
Noise is the next problem, since air-cooled industrial rigs run at around 70-76dB, like leaving a vacuum cleaner on all night. Quieter home models such as the Avalon Q, at 45-65dB, are built for living rooms, but you pay for that quiet with lower earnings.
Bitcoin mining tax UK: how HMRC treats rewards
Mining income is taxable in the UK, because HMRC counts your rewards as income on the day you receive them. You may also owe Capital Gains Tax if you later sell coins that have gone up in value. This article is not financial or tax advice.
Verdict: is bitcoin mining profitable in the UK?
For most people, bitcoin mining in the UK does not pay on household electricity, whether you are on the price cap or on a cheap overnight tariff. The best rig needs power under 11.4p/kWh, and overnight rates only dip that low on the windiest nights, not on average.
Mining only at night cuts your losses a lot, but it does not turn them into a profit, and the 2028 halving makes things harder still. Among the other coins, only Kaspa on night rates and Pearl on a high-end graphics card come out ahead, and both carry the risks set out above.
If the real goal is a lower energy bill, you will get further by moving everyday things like washing and EV charging into the cheap hours. The SwitchInsights guide to the cheapest time of day to use electricity covers how, and the SwitchPilot Score on our tariff tracker ranks time-of-use deals on quality as well as price.
Frequently asked questions
Is bitcoin mining profitable in the UK in 2026?
Bitcoin mining does not pay on household electricity right now. At the 26.32p/kWh price cap no rig on sale covers its running costs, and even the most efficient one, the Antminer S23, needs power below 11.4p/kWh before you count its £7,488 price.
What is the best bitcoin mining rig for a UK home?
For a home, the Avalon Q is the most practical choice, since it plugs into a normal socket, draws 1,674W and runs at 45-65dB. The Antminer S23 earns more per watt, but it needs its own electrical circuit and is far too loud for a living space.
How much electricity does a bitcoin mining rig use?
That depends on the size of the rig. A small Bitaxe Gamma uses about 22W, less than an old-style light bulb, while an Antminer S21+ draws about 3,456W, which adds up to 83kWh and £21.83 a day at the price cap.
Can I mine bitcoin only during cheap night rates?
Yes, rigs are happy to be switched off and on, and smaller ones can run on a smart plug with a timer. The trouble is that the best rig needs a night rate below 11.4p/kWh, and overnight rates on a time-of-use tariff only drop that far on the windiest, quietest nights, so mining at night cuts your losses without turning a profit.
Can you still mine Ethereum?
No, Ethereum switched from mining to staking in September 2022, so no rig or graphics card can mine it. Of the other coins SwitchInsights checked, only Kaspa on cheap night rates and the new Pearl coin on a high-end graphics card earned more than they cost to run in October 2026.
Do I pay tax on bitcoin mining in the UK?
Yes, HMRC counts mining rewards as income, valued in pounds on the day you receive them. If you hold on to the coins and sell them later for more, Capital Gains Tax may apply too.