Is solar still worth it in 2026 without the federal tax credit?

What actually changed at the end of 2025

For years, the headline number in any solar pitch was the federal residential tax credit — most recently 30% of the system cost back on your taxes. That credit expired on December 31, 2025. If you buy and own a system placed in service in 2026, you do not receive it.

This matters because a lot of the industry built its sales math around that credit. With it gone for owned systems, anyone still implying you’ll get 30% back on a system you buy is either behind or not being honest. So the real question is whether solar pencils out on its own.

The honest case for solar in 2026

Solar never made sense only because of the credit. The durable value comes from producing your own power instead of buying all of it from the utility, and that value did not disappear in 2026:

• Long-term bill reduction: you replace decades of grid purchases with energy you generate.
• Energy independence and resilience: paired with a battery, you keep power during outages.
• A home asset: an owned system belongs to you and conveys with the home.
• Control: your production is insulated from however utility pricing moves over time.

Where it depends on your market

Whether solar is "worth it" depends heavily on your utility and state — far more than on any national headline:

In California, NEM 3.0 means exporting to the grid pays little, so the math now usually depends on adding a battery to use your own power. In Texas, the value often centers on resilience against grid events plus the retail plan you choose. In much of Utah, low export credit makes self-consumption the goal, while some municipal utilities still offer near-retail or one-to-one credit that changes the picture entirely. In Illinois, state programs like Illinois Shines plus the 2025 shift to net billing and outage resilience drive the decision.

How the remaining credit value reaches you

Here is the nuance most homeowners miss: the commercial tax credit still applies to third-party-owned systems. Through a prepaid lease or a lease/PPA, a financing partner owns the system, claims that credit, and prices the value in — so that credit value can still reach you, just not on a system you own outright. We walk through whether that path fits before you decide how to pay.