Money

Solar and property tax: what your state actually does

Adding solar adds value, and adding value normally raises your assessment. Most states switch that off. Almost none of them do it the same way.

Updated September 2026 · Data as of State tax statutes read on 2 September 2026

Written by HyreSolar Research team Research and analysis

Audited by HyreSolar Research team Data audit and fact check

1 Jan 2027 California’s exclusion is set to expire Rev. & Tax. Code § 73(i)(1)

80% is what North Carolina excludes, not 100% You still pay on 20%

7 states verified against their own publisher Six more read from mirrors

The short answer

Most states relieve solar from property tax, but "exemption" covers at least four different mechanisms and the differences decide real money. California's is not an exemption at all: it is an exclusion from assessed value, and it is currently set to expire on 1 January 2027. North Carolina excludes 80% of the appraised value, so a homeowner still pays tax on the other 20%. New York's is a 15-year exemption of the increase in value, it requires an application by a deadline, and any county, city, town or village may opt out of it entirely. Virginia mandates a full exemption only at 25 kW or below; above that it is up to your locality to pass an ordinance. We verified seven states against their own official publisher and read six more from statutory mirrors, and we name every state we could not check rather than filling in a table.

Why this relief exists at all

Property tax is assessed on the value of your property. Add something that increases that value and, absent a rule saying otherwise, your assessment goes up and so does your bill. A solar array is an improvement, and improvements are exactly what assessors are looking for.

California makes the logic visible better than anywhere. Under the state's assessment regime, installing solar would be new construction and would trigger reassessment. The solar provision exists for one purpose: to switch that off. It is not a subsidy bolted on top of the system, it is a carve-out from the machinery that would otherwise apply.

That framing explains the variety in what follows. Every state is solving the same problem, but they are solving it inside their own assessment law, which is why some produce an exemption, some an exclusion from value, some a partial exclusion, and some merely permission for a locality to act.

Four things called "an exemption"

Exemption: The system is not subject to the tax. The cleanest form of relief. Maryland and Minnesota are verified examples.
Exclusion from assessed value: The system is not exempt, but the value it adds is not counted. Practically similar, legally different, and the difference can matter for what happens when the provision lapses or the property sells. California and Arizona are verified examples.
Partial exclusion: Only part of the value is excluded. North Carolina excludes 80% of a solar system’s appraised value, which means 20% remains taxable. Anyone writing that North Carolina "exempts solar" is wrong by a fifth.
Local option: The state permits localities to exempt but does not itself do so. This is the one most often reported as a state exemption when it is not. Virginia above 25 kW is a verified example.
Change-in-ownership rule: Whether the relief survives a sale of the house. California’s exclusion expressly does not: it lasts "only until there is a subsequent change in ownership".

California’s exclusion is set to expire on 1 January 2027

California’s 2027 sunset is the most time-sensitive fact on the page and it is roughly four months away as we publish.

California's provision states that the section "shall remain in effect only until January 1, 2027", and separately limits its application to lien dates through the 2025 to 2026 fiscal year. The current expiry date was set by legislation enacted in 2025 and effective from 1 January 2026.

Systems that qualify before that date are grandfathered, but only conditionally: they stay excluded "until there is a subsequent change in ownership". So the relief follows the current owner, not the house.

Systems installed on or after 1 January 2027 get nothing under this section unless the Legislature extends it again, which it has done repeatedly before. We are not predicting what the Legislature will do. We are telling you the statute currently has a date on it, that the date is close, and that anyone in California weighing an installation against a property tax consequence should check the current text rather than any article, including this one, written before the position resolves.

States verified against their own official publisher

State	Citation	Mechanism	Scope and conditions	Expiry
California	Rev. & Tax. Code § 73	Exclusion from assessed value	Residential and commercial. Includes storage. Excludes pool and hot tub heaters.	Expires 1 January 2027. Also ends on a change in ownership.
Arizona	A.R.S. § 42-11054(C)	Exclusion from assessed value	Devices "primarily for on-site consumption" are considered to add no value. An export-oriented system falls outside.	None found
Florida	Fla. Stat. § 193.624	Exclusion from assessed value	Residential 100%, non-residential 80%. Residential devices installed on or after 1 January 2013.	Expires 31 December 2037
Maryland	Tax-Property § 7-242	Exemption	Not subject to real property tax. Unusually, grid export does not disqualify.	None in the section
Minnesota	Minn. Stat. § 272.02 subd. 24	Exemption, personal property	Systems at or below 1 MW are also exempt from the production tax, so every rooftop system clears it.	None found
New York	RPTL § 487	15-year exemption of the increase in value	Term-limited, not permanent. Any county, city, town or village may opt out entirely.	Systems must be built before 1 January 2030
Virginia	Va. Code § 58.1-3661	Mandatory only at 25 kW or below	At or below 25 kW, wholly exempt statewide. Above that it is a local-option ordinance, and not every locality has one.	The zoning section it keys to is dated "effective until 1 January 2027"

Each row read from the state’s own legislative publishing system on 2 September 2026.

Read the mechanism column before the expiry column. An exclusion that ends on a change of ownership and an exemption with no sunset are different products, even where the annual saving looks identical today.

States read from a statutory mirror, not yet confirmed at source

State	Citation	What the text says
Texas	Tax Code § 11.27	Exemption of the added appraised value, for a device primarily for on-site use. Notably covers the device owner even where they do not own the land, which squarely addresses leased systems.
North Carolina	G.S. § 105-275(45)	80% excluded, not 100%. A homeowner still pays tax on 20% of the system’s appraised value. The definition covers conversion of solar energy to electricity, so solar water heating appears not to be covered.
New Jersey	N.J.S.A. 54:4-3.113b	Exemption, but only on certification by the local enforcing agency. No certificate, no exemption.
Oregon	ORS 307.175	Exemption of the added value. Gated on being a net metering facility or primarily offsetting on-site use. A note to the section indicates no exemption for tax years beginning after 1 July 2029.
Colorado	C.R.S. § 39-3-102	Exemption, reached by an odd route: residential solar sits inside the household furnishings statute. Conditioned on the property not being used to produce income.
Connecticut	Conn. Gen. Stat. § 12-81(57)	A statutory exemption for qualifying residential and farm systems, plus a separate local abatement option. Gated on installation from 1 October 2007 and on estimated annual production not exceeding the estimated annual load.

These were read from third-party mirrors of the state code because the state’s own site refused automated retrieval. The citations and substance are recorded, but they have not been confirmed against the official publisher.

We separate these deliberately rather than merging them into the table above. A mirror is usually accurate and is not the same as the statute, and you should verify before relying on any of these six.

The four traps that cost people the relief

An application you did not file. New York's exemption is granted "only upon application by the owner", on a prescribed form, filed with the assessor on or before the taxable status date. Miss it and you get nothing that year. New Jersey requires certification by the local enforcing agency as a precondition; no certificate, no exemption. Virginia's local-option route runs through an application to the local building department, which certifies. An exemption you were entitled to and did not claim is worth exactly as much as no exemption.

A locality that opted out. New York's statute lets any county, city, town or village provide by local law that no exemption applies within its jurisdiction. So "New York exempts solar" can be false at your address while remaining true of the statute. Virginia above 25 kW is the same shape from the other direction: nothing happens unless your locality has passed an ordinance.

A threshold you crossed. Virginia's mandatory exemption stops at 25 kW. Connecticut's residential exemption is gated on estimated annual production not exceeding the estimated annual load for the location, so an oversized system can fall out of it. Arizona's provision covers devices "primarily for on-site consumption", which an export-oriented installation may not be.

A percentage you assumed was 100. North Carolina excludes 80% of the appraised value of a solar electric system. Florida excludes 100% for residential property but 80% for non-residential. Both are real reliefs and neither is total.

If you lease the system, ask a different question

Third-party-owned systems sit awkwardly in statutes written with an owner-installer in mind, and the drafting frequently does not address them at all.

Texas is the clearest we found. Its provision extends the exemption to the owner of the device regardless of whether that person owns the real property the device sits on, added by legislation in 2021. That squarely contemplates a leased or third-party-owned system and says who gets the relief.

Colorado is the murkiest. Its residential solar exemption sits inside the household furnishings statute, applies to an "independently owned" residential facility, and is conditioned on the property not being used to produce income. Whether a lease arrangement counts as independently owned, and whether net metering credits or renewable certificate sales count as income, is not resolved by the text of that section. We flag it as an open question rather than guessing, and a Colorado homeowner on a lease should ask their county assessor directly.

Elsewhere the answer generally depends on whether the statute attaches relief to the property, the owner, or the equipment, and that is a question about your state's wording. It is worth asking before signing a lease, because the party who benefits from the exemption is not always the party paying for the system.

The dates to diarise

State	What expires	When	Confidence
California	The whole exclusion, for new systems	1 January 2027	Verified at source
Virginia	The zoning section the 25 kW exemption keys to is dated "effective until"	1 January 2027	Verified that a dated version exists; successor text not read
Oregon	No exemption for tax years beginning after this date, per a note to the section	1 July 2029	From a mirror, not the state publisher
New York	Applies to systems constructed before this date	1 January 2030	Verified at source
Florida	The current subsections expire and prior language revives	31 December 2037	Verified at source

Sunset provisions found in the sections we read. Absence from this table means we found no sunset in the section examined, not that none exists anywhere in the state’s code.

These provisions get extended routinely, and often late. A date in this table is a reason to check the current text, not a prediction that the relief will end.

What to actually do

1
Find out which of the four mechanisms your state uses
Exemption, exclusion from value, partial exclusion, or local option. This determines whether relief is automatic, whether it is total, and whether anything is required of you.
2
Ask your county assessor, not just your installer
The assessor administers the relief and knows how their office applies it, including local opt-outs and certification practice. An installer knows how it usually goes. On this subject those are different things.
3
Find out whether an application is required, and its deadline
Several states grant relief only on application, and at least one ties it to a fixed annual date. Ask what form, to whom, and by when, and do it before the installation rather than after.
4
Check whether your locality has opted out or opted in
In a state with an opt-out, the statute can be irrelevant at your address. In a local-option state, nothing happens unless your locality passed an ordinance. Both are answered by a phone call to the same office.
5
If you are leasing, ask who gets the relief
Some statutes attach it to the equipment owner rather than the landowner, and some do not address the arrangement at all. Ask before signing, and get the answer from the assessor rather than the salesperson.
6
Check the sunset before you rely on it in a payback calculation
If you are counting avoided property tax in a twenty-year payback, a provision with a date on it four months out is a material assumption. Model it both ways rather than assuming an extension.

Method and limitations

Two tiers of confidence, kept separate

Seven states were read from their own legislative publishing systems: California, Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, New York and Virginia. Those are in the first table.

Six more were readable only through third-party mirrors of the state code, because the state's own site refused automated retrieval or served a JavaScript application with no statutory text: Texas, Colorado, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon and Connecticut. Those are in the second table and are labelled as unconfirmed at source. Mirrors are usually accurate. They are not the statute, and on a page about statutes that distinction is the point.

States we could not check

Washington, Utah, Hawaii, Nevada, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Louisiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Massachusetts and New Mexico were all attempted and none could be verified. Every remaining state was not attempted.

Hawaii is a special case worth stating. Hawaii has no state property tax at all; property taxation there is entirely a county matter, so any Hawaii claim has to be sourced to a county code rather than to a state statute. An article that lists Hawaii in a fifty-state state-exemption table has made a category error.

We also record a citation correction: a New Mexico section frequently cited in this context is in fact the valuation freeze for low-income elderly and disabled owners, and is not a solar provision. We were not able to identify the correct citation.

What we did not verify inside the states we did

Maryland's exemption is expressed as subject to an exception in another section, which we did not read. Texas's application requirement is stated in a general chapter provision we did not confirm. Connecticut's exact wording was not captured, only its structure. Each of these is noted so that a reader relying on the detail knows where our reading stopped.

Not tax advice

This describes statutes as published. How your assessor applies them to your property, and what that is worth to you, depends on your assessment, your locality and facts we do not have. The county assessor's office is both the authority and, usually, free.

Questions

Do solar panels increase my property taxes?

In most states with relief, no, because the state either exempts the system or excludes the value it adds from your assessment. But the mechanisms differ and several are partial. North Carolina excludes 80% of appraised value, so 20% remains taxable, and Florida excludes all of the value on residential property but 80% on non-residential.

Is California’s solar property tax exclusion ending?

The statute currently says the section remains in effect only until 1 January 2027, a date set by legislation enacted in 2025. Systems that qualified before then remain excluded until the next change in ownership. The Legislature has extended this provision before and may do so again, which we are not predicting. If it matters to your decision, check the current text of the section rather than any article about it.

What is the difference between an exemption and an exclusion?

An exemption means the property is not subject to the tax. An exclusion means the value the system adds is not counted in your assessment. They produce a similar bill today but they are different legal instruments, and the difference shows up at the edges, such as what happens on a sale. California’s exclusion, for example, lasts only until there is a subsequent change in ownership.

Do I have to apply for the exemption?

In some states, yes, and missing it costs you the relief. New York grants the exemption only on application filed with the assessor by the taxable status date. New Jersey requires certification by the local enforcing agency first. Virginia’s local-option route runs through an application to the local building department. Ask your county assessor what is required where you are.

Can my town opt out of the state exemption?

In New York, yes: the statute expressly lets any county, city, town or village provide by local law that no exemption applies in its jurisdiction. That is why "New York exempts solar" can be untrue at a specific address. Virginia works the other way above 25 kW, where nothing applies unless the locality passes an ordinance.

Does the exemption apply to a leased solar system?

It depends on whether your state’s statute attaches the relief to the property, the owner, or the equipment. Texas addresses this most clearly, extending the exemption to the device owner even where they do not own the land. Colorado is the least clear, because its provision turns on the property not producing income and on the system being independently owned, neither of which its text resolves for a lease. Ask your assessor before signing.

Does the relief cover batteries?

In California, yes: the section expressly includes storage devices, power conditioning equipment and transfer equipment. We did not verify storage treatment in the other states, so we are not stating it either way for them. It is worth asking, because storage is often a larger share of system cost than it was when many of these provisions were drafted.

My state is not listed. What does that mean?

That we did not verify it. Twelve states were attempted and blocked, and the rest were not attempted. It is not a finding that your state offers nothing. Your county assessor’s office is the fastest authoritative answer, and it costs a phone call.

Written and audited by

HyreSolar Research

Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking

We are a research desk, not a sales floor. We read the statute, the tariff, the code section, the federal filing or the manufacturer data sheet ourselves, and we publish the figure with the document it came from and the date we retrieved it. Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify. That rule has cost us whole sections, and it is the reason the rest can be trusted.

160: primary sources read and cited
220: figures with a retrieval date
115: federal and state government sources
66: researched pages published

How this desk works

Primary sources only. Statutes from the legislature’s own publishing system, federal data from the agency that collects it, code text from the adopted edition, manufacturer claims from the data sheet. We do not cite an article that cites a source; we go and read the source.
Every figure carries its provenance. A named document and the date we retrieved it, so you can check it and so you know how old it is. Retrieval dates are not decoration: an EIA rate from May is a different fact from an EIA rate from August.
We publish what we could not verify. Every research page carries a section naming the things we tried to establish and could not, and why. A paywalled standard, a state website that refused the request, a manufacturer that publishes no figure at all.
We separate measurement from modelling from our own reasoning, and label which is which on the page. A laboratory measurement, an assumption inside a modelling tool and our own inference are three different kinds of claim and they are never presented as one.
We do not sell solar, and we take no payment for placement, ranking or a favourable mention. Nobody buys a position on this site.

Data as of State tax statutes read on 2 September 2026. Authorship on this site is organisational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold. Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.

Sources & retrieval dates

California Revenue and Taxation Code § 73 — Source for the active solar energy system new construction exclusion, its expiry on 1 January 2027 and the fiscal-year limit, the grandfathering of qualifying systems until a subsequent change in ownership, the express inclusion of storage devices, the exclusion of pool and hot tub heaters, and the claim requirement on the builder route. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
Arizona Revised Statutes § 42-11054 — Source for the rule that solar energy devices and grid-tied photovoltaic systems "primarily for on-site consumption" are considered to add no value to the property, and for the absence of a sunset in that section. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
Florida Statutes § 193.624 — Source for the 100% residential and 80% non-residential exclusion of just value attributable to a renewable energy source device, the installation date gates, and the expiry of the current subsections on 31 December 2037. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
Maryland Code, Tax-Property § 7-242 — Source for the exemption of solar energy property from real property tax, and for the unusually broad definition that covers electricity supplied to the grid rather than only on-site use. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
Minnesota Statutes §§ 272.02 and 272.0295 — Source for the personal property exemption for solar energy generating systems and for the one megawatt threshold below which a system is also exempt from the production tax. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
New York Real Property Tax Law § 487 — Source for the fifteen-year exemption limited to the increase in value, the application requirement and its taxable status date deadline, the provision allowing any county, city, town or village to opt out by local law, and the 1 January 2030 construction cut-off. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
Virginia Code § 58.1-3661 — Source for the mandatory statewide exemption at 25 kW or below, the local-option ordinance route above that threshold, the application to the local building department with certification, and the minimum five-year term. Retrieved 2 September 2026.

Check the assumption before it goes in a payback figure

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