  We use the constraints arising from primordial nucleosynthesis to bound a
putative electric charge density $|e|n_q$ of the universe. We find
$|n_q/n_\gamma| \lesssim 10^{-43}$, four orders of magnitude more stringent
than previous limits. We also work out the bounds on $n_q$ in models with a
photon mass, that allows to have a charge density without large-scale electric
fields.
