Short answer: yes. If you own your solar system, there is no federal tax credit for it in 2026. The 30% Residential Clean Energy Credit — Section 25D, the one nearly every residential solar quote was built around — was terminated for expenditures made after December 31, 2025 by the tax law signed on July 4, 2025. There was no step-down from 30% to 26% to 22% the way previous expirations worked. It went to zero in a single day.
That is the headline, and most articles stop there. The part that actually matters for what you do next is narrower: the credit did not end for everyone. It ended for homeowner-owned systems specifically.
What "expenditures made after December 31, 2025" actually means
This phrasing tripped up a lot of people in the first half of 2026, because it is not about when you signed the contract or when you paid the deposit. For solar, the IRS treats the expenditure as made when the original installation is completed. A system that was contracted and paid for in 2025 but not finished and placed in service until January 2026 generally does not qualify — the money moving in 2025 is not what the rule turns on.
This is exactly the kind of distinction worth confirming with a tax professional against your own paperwork rather than reading off a website, including this one. Nothing here is tax advice.
What ended, and what did not
| Credit | What it covered | Status in 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| 25D Residential Clean Energy | Homeowner-owned solar panels, 30% | Ended after Dec 31, 2025 |
| 25D battery storage | Home batteries 3 kWh and above, 30% | Ended after Dec 31, 2025 |
| 25D geothermal, small wind, fuel cell | Owner-installed, 30% | Ended after Dec 31, 2025 |
| 25C Energy Efficient Home Improvement | Insulation, windows, heat pumps, up to $3,200/yr | Ended after Dec 31, 2025 |
| 48E Clean Electricity Investment Credit | Business-owned systems, 30% | Still available, with deadlines |
| State & utility incentives | Varies by state | Unaffected by the federal change |
Notice the last two rows. They are where the remaining money is.
The one path that still captures 30%: third-party ownership
Section 48E — the commercial investment credit — was not terminated. When a solar company owns the system on your roof under a lease or a power purchase agreement (PPA), that company is the taxpayer claiming 48E, not you. The 30% does not appear on your tax return; it shows up as a lower monthly payment or a lower per-kWh rate, because the credit is baked into what the provider can afford to charge you.
There are deadlines attached. Third-party-owned residential projects generally need to have begun construction under the safe-harbor window that closed in July 2026, or be placed in service by the end of 2027, to claim the credit. Providers track these dates closely — ask any lease or PPA salesperson directly which basis their pricing assumes, and get the answer in writing.
The tradeoff is real and it is not small: you do not own the system, the long-term savings are lower than ownership, and a lease or PPA is a 20-to-25-year contract attached to your house that can complicate a future sale. It is the only way a residential homeowner touches 30% in 2026, but "the only path to the credit" and "the best financial decision" are not the same sentence.
What this changes if you were planning to install it yourself
Less than you would expect, and in one respect it actually helped. The credit was a percentage of total installed cost, which means it subsidized the expensive path far more than the cheap one — 30% of a $24,000 professional install is $7,200, while 30% of a $10,000 DIY system is $3,000. Removing it widened the gap between DIY and professional installation rather than closing it. We work through the full before-and-after numbers in is DIY solar still worth it without the federal tax credit.
The other thing to do now is find out what your state and utility still offer, because those programs went from a bonus on top of the federal credit to the entire incentive — see state solar incentives that still exist in 2026.