Who actually installs your solar panels?

Four jobs, and no rule that one company does them all

A residential solar installation involves at least four distinct jobs: someone finds you, someone sells you, someone installs, and frequently someone else finances. Nothing in law requires those to be the same company, and in a large part of the market they are not.

This is not a fringe observation. It is how a state regulator describes the industry to homeowners. The California Public Utilities Commission's Solar Consumer Protection Guide separates the roles explicitly: solar providers "sell you solar and send installers to your home"; salespeople "work for solar providers and may call you or knock on your door"; installers "are sent by solar providers to your home"; manufacturers "provide most solar warranties for purchased systems".

The same guide then tells homeowners to assume the seller may not be the installer. Among the questions it says to ask before signing are "What is your company's contractor license number", followed immediately by "What is your installer's contractor license number", then "Is the salesperson an employee of your company?" and "Will you subcontract with another company to install the solar system? If so, what is their CSLB contractor license number?"

A regulator does not write four separate questions where one would do. Those questions exist because the answers are routinely different.

Two filings, two opposite answers

The clearest evidence that this question has no general answer is that two large public companies answer it differently, under oath, in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Sunrun's annual report for the year ended 31 December 2025 describes partners who originate and install, but keeps the contract in-house. Of its sales partners: "All contracts are between the customer and us, based on a price set by us." Of its installation partners: "Installation partners are solely our subcontractors and do not enter into any agreements with our customers." And in its risk factors: "As the primary entity that contracts with customers… we are ultimately responsible as the contracting party for every energy system installation."

Sunnova's last annual report, for the year ended 31 December 2024, describes the opposite allocation. "We utilize our growing dealer network to market, design, construct and install solar energy systems." The dealers hold the paperwork: the company relies on them "to obtain and maintain permits and professional licenses, including as contractors". And the workmanship warranty runs the wrong way from a homeowner's point of view, from the dealer up to the financier rather than from anyone down to you: "the dealer is generally obligated, at its sole cost and expense, to correct defects in its installation work for a period of up to 10 years".

That filing also contains the sentence that makes the structure legible: "we do not control our dealers and their suppliers or their business practices."

Neither company is doing anything improper, and this page takes no view on which structure is better. No primary source we could find supports a comparative quality claim in either direction. What the filings establish is narrower and more useful: the structures differ in who is liable, they differ between companies rather than between industries, and the only way to know which one applies to you is to check.

Why a national brand needs thirty companies, not one licence

Behind the structural variety is a rule that is easy to miss and explains almost everything else on this page. A contractor licence is held in the name of the entity that signs the contract.

Arizona states it as plainly as any state does. It is unlawful for "any person, firm, partnership, corporation, association or other organization" to act as a contractor "without having a contractor's license in good standing in the name of the person, firm, partnership, corporation, association or other organization".

Read that as a business problem. A brand advertising in thirty states cannot solve it by getting one licence recognised thirty times, because licences are not portable between states and they attach to a named entity. It needs thirty licensed entities, or thirty licensed subcontractors, or some combination. The reach is national; the legal structure underneath is not.

Our own data shows the consequence at scale. Of 1,806 solar companies we verified against state licensing authorities across 27 states, 1,739 hold a licence in exactly one state, which is 96.3% of the sample. Only 67 appear in more than one. This is not a market of national firms with wide footprints. It is a market of single-state entities, some of which sit under brands you have heard of.

The tail is real, but it is thin

Grouping the same sample by footprint size makes the shape clearer. Beyond the single-state majority there is a small tail: 50 companies licensed in two or three states, a handful in four to nine, and at the far end three companies licensed in twenty states each.

Those three are the exception that proves the rule, and they are worth understanding correctly. A licensed entity appearing in twenty state registers is not the same thing as a brand operating in twenty states. Our database counts entities, so a brand that reaches thirty states through thirty separate corporations appears as thirty single-state rows, not one wide one. Both patterns exist, and the distinction is exactly the one this page is about.

The practical reading for a homeowner: the fact that a company shows up in your state register is what matters, and the size of its national footprint tells you almost nothing about whether the entity signing your contract is licensed where you live.

The licence belongs to a company because a person stands behind it

Corporations cannot take an exam. So state licensing works by attaching the corporate licence to a named individual, usually called a qualifying individual, qualifying party or qualifying agent, who is supposed to actually run the construction work.

California defines the duty rather than leaving it implied. The qualifying person must exercise "supervision and control of their employer's or principal's construction operations", which the statute spells out as supervising construction operations, making technical and administrative decisions, "checking jobs for proper workmanship", and supervision on construction sites.

Two consequences follow, and neither is widely understood by buyers.

First, the licence is more fragile than it looks. If the qualifier leaves, California requires notification within 90 days and replacement within 90 days, and states that failure to notify "will result in the automatic suspension of the license or removal of the classification". Florida allows 60 days and bars new work during the gap. A company's licence being active today is a statement about a person as much as about a corporation.

Second, one qualifier cannot cover a national brand. California caps it: "a qualifying individual may act as the qualifier for no more than three firms in any one-year period", and even that requires common ownership or an equivalent relationship. Arizona allows one additional licensee, and only where there is at least 25% common ownership. Violating the California rule is a misdemeanour carrying a fine of not less than $3,000 and not more than $5,000.

So the qualifier route is real, it is regulated, and it is capped low enough that it cannot by itself explain a brand operating in thirty states. Something else is doing that work, and it is usually the first two mechanisms in the table above.