What happened on July 4, 2026?

It was the cutoff tied to when a project began construction. Wind and solar facilities that began construction by that point follow the ordinary completion timeline for the Section 48E credit. Projects beginning construction after it must generally be placed in service by December 31, 2027 for the credit to apply.

If I sign a solar lease, do I get the tax credit?

No. On a lease or PPA the system owner claims the credit. You never file for it and it does not appear on your tax return. Any benefit to you shows up only in how the company priced your contract. Compare the total payments over the full term against a cash quote for a comparable system, since that comparison does not depend on who claims the credit.

Did I miss the solar tax credit deadline?

If you were planning to buy a system and claim the credit yourself, that window closed for property placed in service after December 31, 2025. If you are considering a lease or PPA, the relevant question is about the provider's project timeline rather than your own, so ask them directly how their project is positioned and get the answer in writing.

Is solar still worth it without the federal credit?

That depends on your utility rate, your export compensation, your roof and your usage, not on federal policy alone. Losing the credit raises the effective cost of a purchased system, which lengthens payback. Many state and utility incentives still exist. The only reliable way to answer it is to run your own numbers against your actual bill.

Do state solar incentives still exist in 2026?

Yes, in many states. State tax credits, rebates, performance based payments, and property or sales tax exemptions are separate from the federal credit and were not affected by its expiration. What is available varies widely by state and sometimes by utility, so check your own state and utility programs. Compare Top Solar Companies →

The July 4 Solar Deadline Passed. Here Is What a Homeowner Can Still Get in 2026

Q: Can I still get the 30% solar tax credit in 2026?

Not as a homeowner buying your own system. The Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D ended for property placed in service after December 31, 2025. The clean electricity investment credit under Section 48E still exists, but it is claimed by the business that owns the system, which on a lease or power purchase agreement is the solar company rather than you.

Updated Jul 24, 2026 • 5 min read

Written by ClearChoiceRadar Editorial

The two deadlines, and which one applies to you

Federal support for residential solar changed twice in about eighteen months, and the two changes hit different people.

If you buy the system, with cash or a loan, the Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D was the one you claimed on your own return. It ended for property placed in service after December 31, 2025. There is no federal credit on a homeowner-owned residential system installed today.

If a company owns the system and you sign a lease or a power purchase agreement, a different credit is in play: the clean electricity investment credit under Section 48E. That one is claimed by the business that owns the equipment. July 4, 2026 mattered because of when construction began: projects that began construction by that point follow the ordinary completion timeline, while projects starting after it face a hard placed-in-service deadline of December 31, 2027.

Diagram showing three cases for residential solar after July 2026: homeowner-owned systems have no federal credit, lease or PPA projects that began construction by July 4 2026 avoid the 2027 deadline, and later projects must be placed in service by December 31 2027 — On a lease or PPA the credit belongs to the system owner, not the homeowner. Sources: OBBBA sections 45Y and 48E; IRS Notice 2025-42.

Neither deadline created a new benefit for homeowners. Both narrowed one.

The sentence to watch for in a sales pitch

"You still get the 30% tax credit" is the claim to slow down on.

On a lease or PPA, you do not get a tax credit. You never file for it, it never appears on your return, and it does not depend on your tax liability. The company that owns the panels claims it. Whether any of that value reaches you is purely a matter of how they priced your contract, and that is a business decision, not a tax rule.

This is not an accusation that lease and PPA offers are bad deals. Some are reasonable, especially for households with too little tax liability to have used the old credit anyway. It is a statement about how to evaluate one: compare the total dollars you will pay over the full term against a cash quote for a comparable system. That comparison is unaffected by who claims which credit, which is exactly why it is the honest one.

Questions worth asking in writing before signing:

What is the total of all payments over the full term, including every escalator?
Does the payment escalate annually, and by what percentage?
What happens at the end of the term: purchase option, removal, renewal, and at what cost?
What has to happen if I sell the house before the term ends?
Who is responsible for repairs, monitoring, and inverter replacement?

Our guide to choosing an installer covers how to compare offers that are structured differently.

What is actually driving payback now

With the homeowner credit gone, the numbers that decide whether solar pays for itself are the ones that were always local: what your utility charges you per kilowatt hour, and what it credits you for the power you export.

Those two figures vary far more between utilities than most national articles admit, and export compensation has been moving downward in a number of states. That makes the rate structure on your specific bill more important to your payback math than any federal policy currently is.

We publish per-utility figures built from the Energy Information Administration's Form EIA-861 data rather than from installer marketing. Start with our solar utility pages for your own utility, and our net metering guide for how export rules work. To run your own numbers, the solar payback calculator takes your rate and system size directly.

A note on state and utility programs: they did not disappear with the federal credit. Some states have their own credits, rebates, performance payments, or property and sales tax exemptions. Those are worth checking before concluding solar no longer pencils where you live. Our incentives guide covers the categories to look for.

What we are not going to tell you

We are not going to tell you whether Congress restores a residential credit, or when. Proposals circulate constantly and reporting on them tends to describe possibilities as though they were schedules. Decide based on the rules that exist.

We are also not going to tell you that solar is or is not worth it generally. That answer is mostly determined by your utility rate, your roof, your consumption pattern, and how long you plan to stay in the house. Those are knowable. Run them.

If you want to sanity check a quote first, our solar costs and ROI guide covers what a reasonable installed price per watt looks like, and the solar answers hub has short answers to the common questions.