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How solar gets paid for
The federal residential credit ended for expenditures made after December 31, 2025, so everything that still pays a solar owner now comes from a state, a utility or a filed tariff. That changed the question. It used to be "what is the credit worth?" It is now "what is a kilowatt-hour worth when it leaves my house?" — and the answer varies more between two neighboring states than the federal credit ever varied between two people.
These pages explain the mechanisms, using what we found reading the primary sources for 12 states. The state pages are here if you already know which one you need.
There are only a few ways a residential solar system can produce money, and after 2025 they are all local:
- Electricity you generate and use yourself. This is almost always the largest term. It is worth exactly the retail price you were not charged, which is why the same array pays back faster in a high-price state than a sunnier low-price one.
- Electricity you export. Worth whatever your state and utility have decided it is worth — which ranges, across the states we have read, from full retail value down to nothing at all.
- Tax treatment. Credits, exemptions and exclusions, most of which are state-level and several of which have expired or been struck down without the guides noticing.
- Rebates and program payments. Upfront or performance payments from a utility or a state agency. These are the fastest-moving category and the one most often reported as live after it has closed.
- Certificates. Renewable energy certificates, where a compliance market exists for someone to buy them.
The pages in this section take those one at a time.
What reading 12 states actually showed
One finding is worth putting on this landing page because it reframes the whole section. Of the 12 states with data on this site, exactly one operates what would honestly be called net metering, four operate net billing, six do both at once inside a single monthly bill, and one has no net metering at all.
So the term most people search for describes a minority of the sample, and the most common arrangement is the one that has no common name. That is the subject of the first page in this section, and it is why this site states a state's rules rather than its label.
Each of the pages above is written the same way as the state pages: the figures live in structured data with the date each was checked against a primary source, and nothing is carried over from another site's summary. How we verify is here.
Common questions
What actually pays for solar now that the federal credit is gone?
Four things, and all of them are local. The electricity you generate and use yourself, which is worth the retail price you avoided and is usually the largest term. The electricity you export, worth whatever your state and utility have decided — which across the states on this site ranges from full retail value down to nothing. State tax treatment, meaning credits, exemptions and exclusions. And rebates or program payments from a utility or state agency, which is the fastest-moving category. Certificates matter only where a compliance market exists for someone to buy them.
Does it matter more which state I am in or how sunny it is?
For most households the state's rules and its retail electricity price matter more than the difference in sunshine between two states in the same region. A kilowatt-hour you generate and use is worth exactly the price you were not charged for it, so a high-price state with ordinary sun can beat a sunnier state with cheap power. On top of that sit rules that differ far more sharply than irradiance does: whether your exports earn retail value or a wholesale-derived rate, whether unused credit expires, and whether your utility may charge you a monthly fee for having the system at all.
Why does this site not just give a national payback number?
Because the inputs that decide it are set state by state and utility by utility, and after the federal credit ended there is no longer a large national term to swamp them. Two states on this site treat exported electricity in opposite ways, and one requires a monthly charge calculated on the size of your array while two others ban that kind of charge by name. A single national figure would have to average across those, and the average would describe nobody.
Primary sources
Every one of these was opened and read on the date shown. None of it is copied from DSIRE, EnergySage, or any other aggregator.
- 26 U.S.C. § 25D, U.S. Code (prelim), Office of the Law Revision Counsel the repeal that moved these questions to the states