The placed-in-service date
The operative test, and not the same as the contract date, the payment date or the installation start. For most homeowners the permission-to-operate letter is the clearest evidence of when the system was ready for use.
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Who Claims the Solar Tax Credit?
Ownership type and placed-in-service date decide it. Frequently the answer is nobody.
The federal residential credit under §25D is not available for property placed in service after 31 December 2025. Under a lease or power purchase agreement it was never yours to claim in the first place. This tool answers who claims what, and refuses to invent a fifty-state table for the rest.
What this returns at the defaults
For a cash or loan purchase placed in service in 2026: §25D is $0, and nobody claims a homeowner credit. For a lease or PPA: the homeowner typically does not claim §25D at all, a third-party owner may claim a different credit, often under §48E, and that is not your credit. For a system placed in service by 31 December 2025 under cash or loan ownership, the credit may still apply and the owner is the person who would claim it.
Last updated . Data as of 11 August 2026.
Who claims it
Ownership and placed-in-service date decide the answer.
— Federal homeowner credit
— Who claims it
— State and utility programmes
Not tax advice. Placed in service is the test, not the contract date.
HyreSolar does not prepare returns and does not sell systems.
The two questions that decide everything
First, who owns the system. Tax credits follow ownership. If you bought it with cash or a loan, you own it. If you signed a lease or a power purchase agreement, a third party owns it and the equipment is on your roof under a contract. That single fact determines whether any homeowner credit was ever available to you.
Second, when it was placed in service. Not when you signed, not when the panels arrived, and not when you paid. Placed in service is the operative concept and for a residential system it generally means when it is installed and ready for use. §25D is not available for property placed in service after 31 December 2025.
State and utility programmes are a separate question and we do not ship a table for them. They change frequently, they vary by utility as well as by state, and a stale table is worse than no table. The federal DSIRE database is the right place to look, and it is maintained by people whose job that is.
You own it, 2025 or earlierThe credit may still apply. Confirm the placed-in-service date and speak to a tax professional about your own liability.
You own it, 2026 onward§25D is $0. Any proposal showing a 30% credit is showing you a number you cannot claim.
Lease or PPA, any yearNot your credit. A third-party owner may claim under a different provision, and whether that is reflected in your payment is a commercial question, not a tax one.
How to use this calculator
Every input below is a number you can find, not one you have to guess. This is where each one comes from.
- 01
Choose how the system is owned
Cash and loan both mean you own it. Lease and power purchase agreement both mean a third party does.
Where to find it Your contract. If you are making monthly payments to a company that also owns the equipment, it is third-party ownership regardless of what the sales material called it.
- 02
Choose the placed-in-service year
The year the system was installed and ready for use, which is not necessarily the year you signed or paid.
Where to find it Your permission-to-operate letter or final inspection sign-off is the best evidence most homeowners have. Our page on PTO covers what that document actually is and when it arrives.
- 03
Read the federal answer
It tells you whether a homeowner credit exists for that combination and who would claim it.
Where to find it This is a general answer about how the provision works, not advice about your return. Your own tax position, including whether you have liability to offset, is a question for a professional.
- 04
Look up state and utility programmes separately
We deliberately do not ship a fifty-state table, because a stale one would cost you money.
Where to find it DSIRE, the federally funded database of state incentives, maintained by North Carolina State University. Search by your state and then by your specific utility, because utility programmes are often the larger of the two.
- 05
Check property tax treatment as well
Separate from income tax credits and frequently overlooked. Many states exclude some or all of a system’s value from assessment.
Where to find it Our property tax exemptions page covers what we verified, including that California’s exclusion expires on 1 January 2027 and that North Carolina excludes 80%, not 100%.
How this calculator works
Establish ownership
Cash and loan are ownership. Lease and PPA are third-party ownership.
Establish the placed-in-service year
When the system was installed and ready for use.
Apply the §25D cutoff
Not available for property placed in service after 31 December 2025.
Send state and utility questions to DSIRE
Because a fifty-state table we do not maintain would go stale and mislead you.
The formula, in full
If ownership is lease or PPA, the homeowner typically does not claim §25D; a third-party owner may claim a different credit, often §48E. Otherwise, if placed in service on or before 31 December 2025, the owner is the person who would claim §25D. If placed in service after that date, §25D is $0.
A worked example, start to finish
A homeowner who signed a contract in November 2025, had the system installed in January 2026, and received permission to operate in February 2026, financed with a solar loan.
Inputs
- Ownership
- Loan, homeowner owns
- Contract signed
- November 2025
- Installed
- January 2026
- Permission to operate
- February 2026
- Placed in service
- 2026
Result
§25D is $0
The contract date does not save it. Placed in service is the operative test, and this system was placed in service in 2026. A proposal prepared in November 2025 showing a 30% credit would have been describing a benefit this homeowner cannot claim. If your timeline looks like this, check what your proposal assumed.
How the answer moves
How the answer changes. Every result is produced by the tool on this page.
| Ownership | Placed in service | Federal answer | Who claims it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash | 2026 | §25D is $0 | Nobody claims a homeowner credit |
| Loan | 2026 | §25D is $0 | Nobody claims a homeowner credit |
| Cash | 2025 | May still qualify | The owner, if placed in service by 31 December 2025 |
| Lease | 2026 | Homeowner typically does not claim §25D | A third-party owner, often under §48E |
| PPA | 2026 | Homeowner typically does not claim §25D | A third-party owner, often under §48E |
The lease and PPA rows have been true for far longer than the 2026 cutoff. Third-party ownership has always meant the credit went to the owner, which is why a lease pitch that leans on "the tax credit" deserves a direct question about whose credit is being described.
What moves this number most
Ranked. A proposal can change any of these without saying anything untrue, so these are the inputs to check first.
Whether you own the system
Credits follow ownership. Under a lease or PPA the homeowner is not the owner, so a homeowner credit was never available regardless of dates.
Your own tax liability
A credit offsets tax you owe. This tool cannot see your return and does not know whether you have liability to offset, which is one of several reasons this is not tax advice.
State programmes, which we do not tabulate
They change frequently and vary by utility as well as by state. DSIRE is maintained for exactly this purpose and a stale table on our site would be worse than sending you there.
Property tax treatment, which is a different mechanism
Not an income tax credit at all. Many states exclude some or all of a system’s assessed value, and the terms differ sharply. Ours is a verified state-by-state page rather than a guess.
What your proposal assumed
Many proposals prepared before the cutoff showed a net price after a 30% credit. If yours did and your system was placed in service in 2026, the net price on that document was never achievable.
Common mistakes with this calculation
Using the contract date instead of the placed-in-service date
The test is when the system was installed and ready for use. A November 2025 contract with a January 2026 installation is a 2026 system for this purpose.
Believing a lease gives you the tax credit
Under third-party ownership the credit goes to the owner, not to you. Whether the owner passes any of that value through in your payment is a commercial matter you would have to negotiate, not a tax outcome you can claim.
Accepting a proposal’s net price without checking the credit assumption
A proposal showing a price after 30% is showing a number that depends entirely on a credit that may not be available. Always compare gross prices.
Assuming a credit is a refund
A nonrefundable credit offsets tax you owe. If your liability is small, the benefit may be smaller than the headline percentage suggests. This is exactly the kind of question a tax professional exists for.
Forgetting state and utility programmes entirely
The federal answer being zero does not mean there is nothing. Utility programmes in particular can be substantial and are frequently the larger of the two. Search DSIRE by state and then by utility.
Confusing income tax credits with property tax treatment
They are different mechanisms with different rules. A state may offer nothing on income tax and still exclude the system’s value from your assessment, which is worth real money over time.
Important: this is a planning estimate
- Not tax advice. It describes how the provisions work, not what you should put on your return.
- Does not know your tax liability, and a nonrefundable credit is worth nothing without liability to offset.
- Does not ship a fifty-state incentive table, deliberately. Use DSIRE, which is maintained.
- Covers the federal homeowner credit and points at the third-party provision. It does not model business or commercial claims.
- Does not cover property tax, sales tax or utility rebate treatment, which are separate mechanisms.
Questions this calculator answers
Can I still claim the 30% solar tax credit?
Not for a system placed in service after 31 December 2025. The residential credit under §25D is not available for property placed in service after that date. If your system was placed in service on or before it and you own the system, the credit may still apply and you would be the person claiming it.
What does "placed in service" mean?
Generally, when the system is installed and ready for use, not when you signed the contract, not when you paid, and not when the panels were delivered. For most homeowners the permission-to-operate letter or final inspection sign-off is the clearest available evidence of that date.
I signed in 2025 but it was installed in 2026. Which year counts?
2026, because placed in service is the test rather than the contract date. This catches a lot of people whose proposals were prepared before the cutoff and showed a net price after a 30% credit. If that describes you, check what your proposal assumed and compare gross prices instead.
Do I get the tax credit with a solar lease?
No. Under a lease or power purchase agreement a third party owns the equipment, and tax credits follow ownership. The owner may claim a different credit, often under §48E, but that is their credit and not yours. Whether any of that value reaches you through a lower payment is a commercial question you would have to negotiate.
Why does this tool not show my state’s incentives?
Because we do not maintain a fifty-state table and a stale one would cost you money. State and utility programmes change frequently and vary within a state by utility. DSIRE is federally funded, maintained for exactly this purpose, and is the right place to search, by state first and then by your specific utility.
Is the federal credit refundable?
The residential credit was nonrefundable, meaning it offsets tax you owe rather than generating a payment. If your liability is small, the benefit can be much smaller than the headline percentage. This is one of several reasons to talk to a tax professional about your own return rather than relying on a general answer.
My proposal shows a price after a 30% credit. What should I do?
Compare gross prices instead, across every quote you have. A net price that depends on a credit you cannot claim is not a price. Ask the installer directly what placed-in-service date they assumed and on what basis, and get the answer in writing.
Are there other federal incentives?
For a homeowner who owns the system, §25D was the main one and it is closed for systems placed in service after 31 December 2025. §48E exists on the business side and is what a third-party owner of a leased system may claim. We cover both in detail rather than summarising them here.
What about property tax on my system?
That is a separate mechanism from income tax credits and it is frequently overlooked. Many states exclude some or all of a solar system’s value from assessment, but the terms vary sharply, California’s exclusion expires on 1 January 2027 and North Carolina excludes 80% rather than 100%. Our verified state page has the detail.
Should I have rushed to install before the deadline?
That decision has passed for most people, and rushing a twenty-five-year installation to catch a tax date carries its own risks, a hurried roof assessment, a compressed design, an installer chosen on availability. The credit is worth real money and so is a system installed properly. We are not going to pretend the trade did not exist.
The research behind these numbers
Every assumption in this calculator is argued from primary sources somewhere in our research library. These are the pages that matter for this one.
- What the §25D expiry changed The full account of the residential credit ending, which dates matter and what "placed in service" means.
- §48E explained The provision a third-party owner may claim on a leased or PPA system, and why it is not your credit.
- Solar property tax exemptions A different mechanism entirely. California’s exclusion expires 1 January 2027 and North Carolina excludes 80%, not 100%.
- Permission to operate The document that best evidences when your system was placed in service, and how long it actually takes.
- What zero-down actually costs Why proposals lean on the credit, and the CFPB finding on hidden fees.
- Solar sales regulation by state Which states require tax credit claims in a sales presentation to be disclosed or substantiated.
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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 11 August 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.
Data and sources
- Residential Clean Energy Credit (§25D) (IRS, retrieved 2026-08-11. The primary source for the homeowner credit and the placed-in-service cutoff.)
- DSIRE, Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency (NC Clean Energy Technology Center, retrieved 2026-08-11. Where to search state and utility programmes. Maintained; our site does not duplicate it.)
- Clean Electricity Investment Credit (§48E) (IRS, retrieved 2026-08-11. The provision a third-party owner of a leased or PPA system may claim.)