If you are buying solar for your home in California this year, the 30 percent federal tax credit is not available to you. It expired on 31 December 2025.
We put that first because a number of pages on this subject still describe the credit as live. Most are not trying to mislead anyone — the law changed partway through 2025 and older content is still online. Here is what is actually left, what is closing soon, and how to check a quote you have been handed.
Rules verified 30 August 2026. We will update this page when they change, and note the date when we do.
Is the 30% federal solar tax credit still available in 2026?
No, not for a residential system you buy.
The residential clean energy credit — Section 25D of the tax code, the one homeowners have claimed on purchased solar for years — expired on 31 December 2025. If your system goes in during 2026 there is no 30 percent line to claim on your federal return.
It was worth thousands. A 4.5 kW system in Contra Costa lands at roughly $12,600 at current installed costs; 30 percent of that is about $3,800. Removing it adds years to a payback period, not months.
Our savings calculator has run with no federal credit since we rebuilt it, which is one reason its payback figures are longer than others you will see, and our FAQ has said the same since the change took effect.
If you are holding a proposal showing a federal credit on a purchased residential system in 2026, ask for the same numbers with the credit line removed and see what the payback becomes. That request tells you a great deal about who you are dealing with.
Why can a lease or PPA still capture a federal credit when a purchase can’t?
Because the credit follows the owner, and under a lease or a power purchase agreement the owner is not you.
The residential credit was the mechanism that gave a homeowner a tax benefit for a system they owned, and that mechanism is gone. Under a lease or PPA a company owns the equipment on your roof and sells you the power or rents you the hardware. That company is a business, and business-side clean energy tax provisions sit in a different part of the tax code from the residential credit that expired.
Two things follow.
Any value that reaches you arrives as a price, not a tax benefit. You will not claim anything on your return. If the provider is capturing a federal benefit, it shows up — or does not — in the payment or rate they quote. So compare offers on the number you actually pay, not on the incentive story attached to it.
We are not going to quote a percentage or an expiry date for the business-side rules here. We hold our own numbers to a standard of verified against a primary source and apply the same rule to everyone else’s. If a lease or PPA is a serious option, get the terms in writing and have the provider state plainly what they are claiming.
Otherwise: read the escalator clause, check what happens when you sell the house, and remember you do not own the asset. A lease is genuinely right for some households, particularly those with little tax liability. It is also sometimes sold as right because it is easiest to sell. Ask which one you are in.
What California incentives are actually left?
Less than the internet implies, and one thing worth more than most people realise.
There is no statewide cash rebate for residential solar panels. There has not been one for years. If you see “California solar rebate” as a headline, check what it actually refers to before factoring it into a decision.
There is a state storage incentive programme for batteries. California runs the Self-Generation Incentive Program, which has funded home storage through various tiers. Its budgets and eligibility rules have changed repeatedly, so we are not printing an amount or a funding status on a page that will still be here in six months. Ask us and we will check the current position and your eligibility on the day you ask, including when the answer is no.
Income-qualified programmes exist, and we are often not the right people to run them. State and non-profit programmes aimed at low-income households and disadvantaged communities are, in parts of Richmond and San Pablo, the best option available. We are not the delivery partner for those. If you might qualify, ask and we will point you at who to talk to rather than quoting you for something you should be getting a different way.
Faster permitting, which is real money. SB 379 requires non-exempt California jurisdictions to offer online instant permitting for residential solar and storage up to 38.4 kW AC. Where it works, it takes weeks and soft cost out of a project.
And the incentive nobody calls an incentive: PG&E’s rates. The volumetric rate you avoid paying is around 36 cents a kWh. That is the number doing the real work in a California solar business case, and it always was — the federal credit accelerated the payback, it never created it. The full argument is in is solar still worth it in Contra Costa in 2026.
Is solar still exempt from California property tax?
For now, yes — and this one has a date on it.
California’s active solar energy system exclusion means a qualifying solar system does not increase the assessed value of your home for property tax purposes. Add $12,000 of value to your roof and your property tax bill does not follow it up.
The exclusion is scheduled to sunset on 1 January 2027. AB 2389, which would have extended it, died on the Assembly Appropriations suspense file in May 2026.
There is one part of this worth understanding properly, because it cuts in the homeowner’s favour. SB 710 (Chapter 328, Statutes of 2025) did not extend the exclusion, but it did confirm that a system which qualifies before 1 January 2027 keeps the exclusion afterwards, until the home next changes hands. So the deadline is about when your system qualifies, not about whether the benefit evaporates on a particular morning.
We are not going to predict what the Legislature does next — a solar company forecasting tax law is the thing this post exists to warn you about. As the law stands there is a closing window, and if property tax treatment is material to your decision, confirm the current position with your county assessor or the Board of Equalization rather than taking any installer’s word for it, ours included.
What should you ignore on other installers’ websites right now?
Not a competitor list. A checklist you can apply to any quote, including ours.
Any page describing the 30 percent federal credit as available for a purchased residential system. Check the publication date, then check whether the payback figure depends on it. This is the most common error in California solar content right now, and it makes a quote look years better than it is.
“Free solar.” There are genuinely free programmes for qualifying low-income households, run by specific organisations. Everything else using that phrase means a lease, a PPA or a loan. Reasonable products; not free.
Any promise of a $0 PG&E bill, or an offset percentage in the high eighties or nineties. Since March 2026 every PG&E residential customer pays a Base Services Charge of about $24 a month, and PG&E states it “is not eligible to be offset by monthly generation credits.” Solar reaches the energy portion of a bill, not the fixed charge, so a zero bill is no longer optimistic — it is impossible. Ask which portion any offset figure refers to.
A guaranteed savings figure. Production can be estimated and warranted by a manufacturer. Savings depend on utility rates set by the CPUC, which move in both directions — PG&E has cut prices more than once since 2024 — and on when you use electricity. Anyone guaranteeing a savings number is guaranteeing something they do not control.
Two things you are entitled to receive: every residential solar contract in California comes with the CPUC’s California Solar Consumer Protection Guide and the CSLB’s Solar Energy System Disclosure Document. And you have three business days to cancel a home improvement contract — five if the buyer is 65 or older. If anyone says a price is only good today, that is the rule to remember.
For businesses none of this applies the same way. Commercial solar sits under a different tax regime, and we deal with it on our commercial page rather than guessing at it here.
The short version
No 30 percent federal credit on a purchased residential system in 2026. No statewide panel rebate. A storage programme whose status you should ask about rather than read about, and a property tax exclusion scheduled to end on 1 January 2027.
Solar still works in PG&E territory — because electricity here costs around 36 cents a kilowatt-hour, not because of a tax credit. The payback is longer than it was two years ago, and we would rather show you the longer number. Our residential solar page explains how we design around your usage.
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Free consultation, no pressure.
Bring us a quote and we will go through its incentive assumptions line by line, whether or not you end up working with us. If the numbers do not work for your roof, we will tell you that too.
See what your own numbers look like — no federal credit, the $24 base charge included, a real payback figure.
Singh Solar Couple designs and project-manages residential and commercial solar across Contra Costa County. Navjot and Nam bring over a decade of California solar experience. The physical installation is carried out by our licensed contractor partners. Nothing here is tax advice; talk to your tax professional.