The Solar Book

Every claim on this page checked against primary sources on

Missouri solar incentives

Two things Missouri appears to offer solar owners are not actually available, and both are still being quoted. The Revised Statutes still print an exemption from property tax for solar energy systems not held for resale — but the Missouri Supreme Court held that subdivision unconstitutional on August 9, 2022, and the Revisor prints the holding in an annotation directly beneath the text that is still there.

Missouri's utility solar rebates are gone twice over: the Proposition C schedule fell to zero cents per watt after June 30, 2020, and the separate statute that replaced it expired on December 31, 2023. What Missouri does still give you is net metering — and it is better than its export rate suggests, because it nets at retail inside each billing period and it binds co-ops and municipal utilities too.

Does Missouri still have a solar property tax exemption?

No, and this is the single most-repeated wrong fact about Missouri solar. Section 137.100 of the Revised Statutes lists property exempt from taxation, and subdivision (10) reads, in its entirety, "Solar energy systems not held for resale." It is still printed there. But in Johnson v. Springfield Solar 1, LLC, decided August 9, 2022, the Missouri Supreme Court held that subdivision unconstitutional under article X, section 6 of the Missouri Constitution, which limits tax exemptions to specifically enumerated property. The Revisor prints that holding as an annotation beneath the section — so the operative text and the reason it does not work sit on the same page, and anything that reads only the first part gets it confidently wrong. What replaces it is not another exemption but an assessor's discretion: the State Tax Commission's own assessor manual says rooftop panels "could be considered to be a fixture of the home if attached to the home," whose value "would be contributory to the overall value of the residential property and not valued separately."

Verified against primary sources on .

Missouri is the state where the printed law and the enforceable law disagree, and both disagreements cost a homeowner money they think they have. Section 137.100(10) of the Revised Statutes still says solar energy systems not held for resale are exempt from property tax; the Missouri Supreme Court held that subdivision unconstitutional in 2022, and the Revisor still prints it with the holding noted underneath. Missouri's utility solar rebates are gone twice over: the Proposition C schedule fell to zero cents per watt for systems becoming operational after June 30, 2020, and the separate rebate statute that replaced it expired by its own terms on December 31, 2023 — yet one utility's own help pages still describe the rebate in the present tense. What Missouri does still give a homeowner is real and unusually broad: net metering under the Net Metering and Easy Connection Act nets your generation against your consumption at retail inside each billing period, it binds municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives as well as the investor-owned companies, and the renewable energy certificates start out belonging to you. Above your own consumption the credit drops to avoided fuel cost, and any credit you do not use expires after twelve months for nothing.

Everything still on offer in Missouri, and when we last checked it.
ProgramWhat it paysStatusOwnershipChecked
Net metering under the Net Metering and Easy Connection ActBill creditStanding lawBuy or lease

What Missouri still gives you

One entry, and it carries more weight than Indiana's single entry did: Missouri nets your generation against your own consumption at retail prices inside every billing period, and the statute binds municipal utilities and rural electric cooperatives as well as the investor-owned companies.

Net metering under the Net Metering and Easy Connection Act

Standing law Net metering Buy or lease

Bill creditRetail rate-class pricing against your own consumption within each billing period; excess beyond the billing period at a rate at least equal to avoided fuel cost, which differs by supplier (Ameren Missouri 3.84¢/kWh summer and 3.39¢/kWh winter; Evergy Missouri Metro $0.0190/kWh; Evergy Missouri West $0.0198/kWh)

The one thing Missouri still gives a new solar owner, and it is worth more than its export rate suggests: full retail netting inside each billing period, binding on co-ops and municipals as well as the big utilities.

When: Standing statutory scheme, in force since January 1, 2008 and last amended effective August 28, 2022.

Who qualifies, in full
  • OWNERSHIP IS PERMISSIVE, UNLIKE INDIANA'S: a "customer-generator" is "the owner or operator" of a qualified unit, and the unit must be located on a premises "owned, operated, leased, or otherwise controlled by the customer-generator." Both the operator and a leased premises are inside the statutory definition
  • System capacity of not more than one hundred kilowatts, powered by a renewable energy resource, and intended primarily to offset part or all of your own electrical energy requirements
  • COVERS MUNICIPALS AND COOPERATIVES: "retail electric supplier" means any municipally owned electric utility operating under chapter 91, any electrical corporation regulated by the Commission, or any rural electric cooperative operating under chapter 394
  • Your supplier must offer a tariff identical in energy rates, rate structure and monthly charges to the one you would get if you were not a customer-generator, and may not charge any additional standby, capacity, interconnection or other fee that a non-generating customer would not pay
  • THE TWELVE-MONTH TRAP: any credit granted "shall expire without any compensation at the earlier of either twelve months after their issuance or when the customer-generator disconnects service or terminates the net metering relationship with the supplier." There is no annual cash-out and no indefinite carry-forward
  • Systems of ten kilowatts or less cannot be required to install additional controls, perform or pay for additional tests or distribution equipment, or buy additional liability insurance beyond the code standards and the metering rules
  • Application response is due within thirty days for systems of ten kilowatts or less and ninety days for larger ones; an approved application expires if the interconnection is not completed within one year
  • A SECOND TRAP, ON SALE OF THE HOUSE: "Upon the change in ownership of a qualified electric energy generation unit, the new customer-generator shall be responsible for filing a new application." Missouri net metering does not transfer with the property the way Indiana's grandfathered tariffs do
  • You pay for metering equipment the supplier has to add, though the supplier may front the cost and recover it with reasonable interest over up to twelve billing cycles; later meter testing or changes you necessitate are also yours
  • Aggregate availability is first-come, first-served to five percent of the supplier's previous-year single-hour peak load, with a separate rule that no supplier need approve further interconnections in a calendar year once that year's approvals reach one percent of the previous year's peak
  • The sale of a generation unit is subject to Missouri's merchandising practices law, sections 407.010 to 407.145 and 407.700 to 407.720, and the attorney general may make rules on mandatory seller disclosures and investigate misrepresentation of safety or performance
  • NOT VERIFIED HERE: the avoided fuel cost figure at The Empire District Electric Company d/b/a Liberty, or at any individual municipal utility or rural electric cooperative. Each cooperative and municipal sets its own through its own governing body

Authority: Mo. Rev. Stat. § 386.890

What we saw: Section read in full on 2026-07-29 from the Revisor of Statutes of Missouri, version effective 28 Aug 2022 (L. 2007 S.B. 54, A.L. 2018 S.B. 975 & 1024 Revision, A.L. 2022 S.B. 745 merged with S.B. 820). Subsection 2(1) verbatim: "'Avoided fuel cost', the current average cost of fuel for the entity generating electricity, as defined by the governing body with jurisdiction over any municipal electric utility, rural electric cooperative as provided in chapter 394, or electrical corporation as provided in this chapter". Subsection 2(3) defines "customer-generator" as "the owner or operator of a qualified electric energy generation unit which: (a) Is powered by a renewable energy resource; (b) Has an electrical generating system with a capacity of not more than one hundred kilowatts; (c) Is located on a premises owned, operated, leased, or otherwise controlled by the customer-generator". Subsection 2(5) defines "Net metering" as "using metering equipment sufficient to measure the difference between the electrical energy supplied to a customer-generator by a retail electric supplier and the electrical energy supplied by the customer-generator to the retail electric supplier over the applicable billing period". Subsection 2(7) defines "Retail electric supplier" as "any municipally owned electric utility operating under chapter 91, electrical corporation regulated by the commission under this chapter, or rural electric cooperative operating under chapter 394 that provides retail electric service in this state." Subsection 3(1) carries both the five percent first-come cap and the sentence "However, in a given calendar year, no retail electric supplier shall be required to approve any application for interconnection if the total rated generating capacity of all applications for interconnection already approved to date by said supplier in said calendar year equals or exceeds one percent of said supplier's single-hour peak load for the previous calendar year". Subsection 5(2) bills the customer for net electricity supplied "in accordance with normal practices for customers in the same rate class"; 5(3) credits excess "an amount at least equal to the avoided fuel cost of the excess kilowatt-hours generated during the billing period, with this credit applied to the following billing period"; 5(4) verbatim: "Any credits granted by this subsection shall expire without any compensation at the earlier of either twelve months after their issuance or when the customer-generator disconnects service or terminates the net metering relationship with the supplier". Subsection 7(1) sets the thirty-day and ninety-day review periods and the one-year approval expiry; 7(2) verbatim: "Upon the change in ownership of a qualified electric energy generation unit, the new customer-generator shall be responsible for filing a new application under subdivision (1) of this subsection." Subsection 13 subjects unit sales to sections 407.010 to 407.145 and 407.700 to 407.720.

Administered by Missouri Public Service Commission for electrical corporations; each supplier's governing body for municipals and cooperatives.

Checked against Mo. Rev. Stat. § 386.890, Revisor of Statutes of Missouri on

Net metering and net billing in Missouri

Missouri's Net Metering and Easy Connection Act is unusual in two ways that matter more than its rate. The first is who it binds. Section 386.890 defines "retail electric supplier" to include any municipally owned electric utility operating under chapter 91 and any rural electric cooperative operating under chapter 394, alongside the investor-owned electrical corporations the Public Service Commission regulates — so unlike Indiana, Ohio and Georgia, a Missouri co-op or municipal customer is inside the statute rather than outside it. What the Commission does not do is set the number for them: "avoided fuel cost" is defined as the current average cost of fuel for the generating entity "as defined by the governing body with jurisdiction," which for a co-op or a municipal is its own board. The second is the netting. The statute measures the difference between what the supplier delivers and what the customer delivers "over the applicable billing period," and if the supplier's electricity exceeds the customer's generation in that period the customer is simply billed for the net at ordinary rate-class prices. That is full retail netting inside the month. Only what is left over after a whole billing period is exported at avoided fuel cost, and avoided fuel cost is a narrower thing than avoided cost — it is fuel, not capacity, not transmission, not the retail rate. Then comes the part that catches people: any credit granted expires without compensation twelve months after it is issued, or when the customer disconnects or ends the net metering relationship, whichever comes first. There is no annual cash-out. A system oversized against winter production banks credit it may never spend.

System sizeWhich utilitiesWhat you are paid for exports
Systems up to 100 kW, all suppliersInvestor-owned, municipal and cooperativeGeneration offsets consumption at ordinary rate-class prices within each billing period. Excess beyond the billing period is credited at a rate at least equal to the avoided fuel cost of the excess kilowatt-hours, applied to the following billing period. Credits expire without compensation twelve months after issuance, or on disconnection or termination of the net metering relationship.
Ameren Missouri — published export creditAmeren Missouri (Union Electric)3.84 cents per kWh in the summer billing months of June through September, and 3.39 cents per kWh in the winter billing months of October through May. Ameren also caps system size by a stated formula: the most recent twelve billing months of load divided by 8,760 hours times a 15.6% capacity factor, evaluated against the account's actual usage on application.
Evergy Missouri Metro — filed export rateEvergy Metro, Inc.$0.0190 per kWh for all kilowatt-hours received, under Schedule PG, Parallel Generation Contract Service, 16th Revised Sheet No. 31A, effective February 21, 2025. The net metering tariff does not print the number itself; it points at this sheet.
Evergy Missouri West — filed export rateEvergy Missouri West, Inc.$0.0198 per kWh for all kilowatt-hours received, under Schedule PG, Parallel Generation Contract Service, effective February 21, 2025. Missouri West's net metering tariff also states that it is not available to customers participating in Time-Related Pricing, a restriction Evergy Missouri Metro does not carry.
The first-come cap, and the annual throttle inside itAll retail electric suppliersNet metering must be offered first-come, first-served until enrolled net metering capacity reaches five percent of the supplier's single-hour peak load in the previous year, after which the Commission (for an electrical corporation) or the supplier's own governing body may raise it. Separately, no supplier is required to approve any further interconnection in a calendar year once approvals already granted that year reach one percent of the previous year's single-hour peak load. The second limit can close a utility's queue for a year while the five percent headroom is still unfilled.
Municipal utilities and rural electric cooperativesChapter 91 municipals and chapter 394 cooperativesCovered by the Act on the same terms, and required since 2008 to adopt a simple interconnection and net metering contract, with an all-in-one document for systems of ten kilowatts or less. But their avoided fuel cost is set by their own governing body rather than by the Commission, and where the wholesale generator agrees the credit may be provided by that wholesale generator instead. No individual municipal or cooperative's number was read for this page.

Read from Mo. Rev. Stat. § 386.890, Revisor of Statutes of Missouri on .

Missouri's net metering law covers co-ops and municipals — which is rare

On every other state page on this site so far, the sentence about cooperatives and municipal utilities has been the same: they are outside the statute, they set their own terms, and none were read. Indiana excludes them from the definition of "electricity supplier." Ohio does not require them to offer net metering at all. Georgia's commission has only limited authority over its 41 electric membership corporations and 52 municipal systems.

Missouri wrote the opposite rule, and it is in the definition rather than in a program condition.

"Retail electric supplier" or "supplier", any municipally owned electric utility operating under chapter 91, electrical corporation regulated by the commission under this chapter, or rural electric cooperative operating under chapter 394 that provides retail electric service in this state.
Mo. Rev. Stat. § 386.890.2(7) — Revisor of Statutes of Missouri L. 2007 S.B. 54, as amended through 2022

Every operative duty in the Act runs to a "retail electric supplier," so a Missouri co-op member and a municipal utility customer get the same statutory entitlement as an Ameren or Evergy customer: net metering must be made available, the tariff must be identical to the one they would otherwise be on, no extra standby or interconnection fees, and a simple all-in-one application for systems of ten kilowatts or less.

There is a real limit on this, and it is worth being precise rather than triumphal. The rate is not uniform. "Avoided fuel cost" is defined as the current average cost of fuel for the generating entity "as defined by the governing body with jurisdiction" — which for an investor-owned utility means the Public Service Commission, and for a co-op or municipal means its own board or council. So the entitlement is statewide and the number is local. If you are served by a cooperative or a city utility, the question to ask is not whether you can net meter, but what your board has set avoided fuel cost at.

Two traps in the fine print, and neither is about the rate

The export rate gets all the attention. These two cost more.

Credits expire after twelve months, for nothing. The statute says any credit granted "shall expire without any compensation at the earlier of either twelve months after their issuance or when the customer-generator disconnects service or terminates the net metering relationship with the supplier." There is no annual true-up cheque and no indefinite carry-forward. Ohio at least lets credits ride forever; Missouri gives them a twelve-month life and then takes them. A system deliberately oversized to bank summer production against winter bills can bank credit it never spends, and the utility keeps it. Mo. Rev. Stat. § 386.890.5(4)

It does not transfer with the house. "Upon the change in ownership of a qualified electric energy generation unit, the new customer-generator shall be responsible for filing a new application." Indiana's grandfathered tariffs pass to a successor in interest at the same premises, so an Indiana system is an asset you can disclose when selling. A Missouri buyer starts a new application, subject to whatever the queue and the caps look like on the day they file. That is a question worth raising before closing, not after.

Missouri's ownership rule is the friendliest we have found

Indiana put "owned by the customer" into the statutory definition of the thing being compensated, which we described as the hardest ownership line on this site. Missouri's definition, in the same structural position, does the reverse.

"Customer-generator", the owner or operator of a qualified electric energy generation unit which: (a) Is powered by a renewable energy resource; (b) Has an electrical generating system with a capacity of not more than one hundred kilowatts; (c) Is located on a premises owned, operated, leased, or otherwise controlled by the customer-generator; ... (e) Is intended primarily to offset part or all of the customer-generator's own electrical energy requirements.
Mo. Rev. Stat. § 386.890.2(3) — Revisor of Statutes of Missouri L. 2007 S.B. 54, as amended through 2022

"The owner or operator," on premises "owned, operated, leased, or otherwise controlled." Both halves are permissive, and the word "leased" appears in the text rather than having to be argued into it. The national buy-versus-lease picture is here — and Missouri sits at the opposite end of it from Indiana. We are stating what the definition says rather than predicting how any particular lease or power purchase agreement would be treated, but a Missouri homeowner considering third-party ownership is starting from friendlier statutory language than a homeowner in most of the states on this site.

Can you sell SRECs in Missouri?

Yes. Missouri is one of the few states left where a homeowner starts out owning the certificates and there is still a compliance buyer for them. Proposition C, adopted by initiative on November 4, 2008 and now section 393.1030, sets a renewable energy portfolio requirement of no less than fifteen percent of each electric utility's sales in every calendar year beginning in 2021, with no later benchmark and no termination date in the section — the direct contrast with Ohio, whose table simply stops after 2026. At least two percent of each portfolio requirement must be derived from solar energy, so there is a solar-specific obligation rather than a general renewable one. Each kilowatt-hour of eligible energy generated in Missouri counts as 1.25 kilowatt-hours for compliance, an in-state premium. And subsection 3 says in terms that "Certificates from net-metered sources shall initially be owned by the customer-generator" — the same question California and Georgia had to leave unanswered, settled here in a voter-approved statute rather than a rule. Both Evergy Missouri tariffs repeat it: RECs created by the customer-owner are owned by the customer-generator, except that a customer who took a solar rebate transferred them to the utility for ten years. Since the rebates ended, that exception no longer applies to anyone installing today. Two limits are worth knowing: an unused credit may exist for only three years from creation, and compliance costs are capped by a maximum average retail rate increase of one percent, which is the lever utilities have used to limit what they spend. NOT VERIFIED HERE: how a Missouri homeowner actually registers and sells certificates. We established that the demand exists and that the certificates are yours; we did not establish a tracking registry, an aggregator, or a price a household can transact at, and we are not going to imply a market a homeowner can reach until we have read one.

Read from Mo. Rev. Stat. § 393.1030 (renewable energy portfolio requirement, adopted by Proposition C) on .

Missouri still has a compliance market, and the certificates start out yours

This is the part of Missouri that nobody covers, and it survives for an unusual reason: it was adopted by the voters rather than by the legislature. Proposition C passed on November 4, 2008 and is now section 393.1030.

Three things in it matter to a household. The portfolio requirement is at least fifteen percent of sales in every calendar year beginning in 2021, and — unlike Ohio, whose benchmark table simply stops after 2026 — there is no later benchmark and no termination date in the section. At least two percent of the requirement must come from solar specifically, so the demand is solar-shaped rather than generic. And energy generated inside Missouri counts at 1.25 kilowatt-hours per kilowatt-hour for compliance. Mo. Rev. Stat. § 393.1030

Then there is the sentence that answers the question California and Georgia both had to leave open. Subsection 3 provides that "Certificates from net-metered sources shall initially be owned by the customer-generator." Both Evergy Missouri tariffs repeat it, and both carry the single exception: a customer who accepted a solar rebate transferred the certificates to the utility for ten years. Since the rebates ended, that exception cannot apply to anyone installing today.

Why Missouri has no solar tax credit, in the state's own words

The Missouri Department of Revenue's 2025 MO-1040 instruction booklet runs to fifty-three pages and includes the Form MO-TC credit table, which enumerates every credit an individual may claim by alpha code and by administering agency. Across the whole booklet the word "solar" appears zero times. The word "energy" appears once, as the Department of Natural Resources' Processed Wood Energy credit. Missouri DOR, 2025 MO-1040 instructions

The sales tax answer is more interesting, and we are going to stop short of where most pages would carry on. Missouri does exempt solar photovoltaic systems from sales tax, but read who the exemption is written for: section 144.030.2(46) covers "all purchases by a company of solar photovoltaic energy systems, components used to construct a solar photovoltaic energy system, and all purchases of materials and supplies used directly to construct or make improvements to such systems," provided the systems are sold or leased to an end user, or used to produce, collect and transmit electricity for resale or retail. Mo. Rev. Stat. § 144.030.2(46)

The Department has applied that provision in a published letter ruling, and the facts there were a utility-scale solar farm: it held the panels, racking, combiner boxes, inverters, transformers, tracking and SCADA systems exempt, and site fencing and access roads not exempt. Missouri DOR Letter Ruling 8258 It says nothing at all about a homeowner.

So the honest position is that the exemption is written around a company's purchases, and how Missouri sales tax finally falls on a residential rooftop job — on the installer's purchases, on the homeowner's contract, or on neither — is something we have not established from a primary source and are not going to guess at. It is in the list at the foot of this page. If it matters to your numbers, the Department issues binding letter rulings on request, and that is the route to a real answer rather than an inferred one.

What is gone

Four entries. Missouri lost the rebate at the end of 2023, lost the property tax exemption to a court in 2022, lost the federal credit at the end of 2025, and its only residential battery program ran out of funding authority at the end of 2025 — and it was fifty houses in one utility's territory, with the utility owning the battery.

Missouri solar property tax exemption — held unconstitutional

Gone Property tax exemption Buy or lease

No direct paymentSection 137.100(10) is still printed in the Revised Statutes but was held unconstitutional by the Missouri Supreme Court on August 9, 2022 and is not enforceable

Still in the statute book, still listed by most solar guides, and struck down four years ago — the exemption a Missouri homeowner is most likely to be told they have.

When: Held unconstitutional August 9, 2022. Still printed in the Revised Statutes.

Who qualifies, in full
  • WHAT THE STATUTE STILL SAYS: section 137.100 lists property exempt from taxation for state, county or local purposes, and subdivision (10) reads in its entirety "Solar energy systems not held for resale"
  • WHY IT DOES NOT WORK: in Johnson v. Springfield Solar 1, LLC, 648 S.W.3d 101, decided August 9, 2022, the Missouri Supreme Court held that subdivision unconstitutional under article X, section 6 of the Missouri Constitution, which limits tax exemptions to specifically enumerated property. The Revisor of Statutes prints the holding as an annotation directly beneath the section
  • THE STATE TAX COMMISSION'S OWN ANSWER FOR A HOUSE: its assessor manual asks what happens when a taxpayer has solar panels installed on the roof of a home to generate power for use in and around the home, and answers that "In the assessor's discretion based upon the facts known to the assessor, the solar panels could be considered to be a fixture of the home if attached to the home. The value of the fixture would be contributory to the overall value of the residential property and not valued separately"
  • So a Missouri rooftop system can add to the assessed value of the home, it is generally not assessed as a separate line, and the outcome turns on a locally elected assessor's discretion rather than on a statewide rule
  • The Commission is explicit that there is no methodology in statute: "While no current statute specifically provides a methodology for assessment and taxation of solar energy systems, county officials may look to general statutes governing the assessment and taxation of real property and personal property and relevant case law to help guide them"
  • WHAT THE LEGISLATURE DID INSTEAD, AND WHY IT DOES NOT HELP A NEW BUYER: Senate Bill 4 of 2025, signed and effective August 28, 2025, amended sections 137.010, 137.080 and 137.115 to create a new subclass of tangible personal property covering solar panels, racking systems, inverters and related equipment installed in connection with solar photovoltaic energy systems as described in section 144.030.2(46), assessed at five percent of true value — but only for systems "that were constructed and producing solar energy prior to August 9, 2022," the date of the decision. It is a grandfather for systems already running, not a rule for anyone installing now
  • A task force was created to fix this: section 393.1072 established the Task Force on Fair, Nondiscriminatory Local Taxation Concerning Solar Energy Systems, which was to report before December 31, 2022. That section expired December 31, 2022 by its own terms
  • NOT VERIFIED HERE: how individual county assessors are in fact treating residential rooftop systems in 2026. The Commission's guidance is discretionary by design and we did not survey counties
  • NOT VERIFIED HERE: whether the 2025 personal property subclass can reach a residential rooftop system that was producing before August 9, 2022. It cross-references a sales tax provision written around purchases by a company, and the Commission's own guidance treats residential rooftop panels as a fixture of real property rather than as personal property

Authority: Mo. Rev. Stat. § 137.100(10), held unconstitutional by Johnson v. Springfield Solar 1, LLC, 648 S.W.3d 101 (Mo. banc 2022); cf. §§ 137.010, 137.080, 137.115 as amended by S.B. 4 (2025)

What we saw: Section 137.100 read on 2026-07-29 from the Revisor of Statutes of Missouri, version effective 28 Aug 2013. Subdivision (10) is printed in the operative list of exempt subjects and reads, in full, "Solar energy systems not held for resale." The annotation printed beneath the section reads verbatim: "(2022) Section exempting solar energy systems not held for resale from property taxation is unconstitutional under article X, § 6 limitation of tax exemptions to specifically enumerated property. Johnson v. Springfield Solar 1, LLC, 648 S.W.3d 101 (Mo.banc)." The State Tax Commission of Missouri's Assessor Manual chapter 7.11, "Assessment of Solar Property," revision date March 8, 2023, read as a PDF the same day, opens: "On August 9, 2022, the Missouri Supreme Court issued its decision in Brent Johnson, et al., v. Springfield Solar 1, LLC, et al., (SC99441) holding that the exemption for 'solar energy systems not held for resale' under Section 137.100(10) is unconstitutional." Its Question 1 and Answer 1 are quoted in the eligibility list above verbatim. The manual also states that the task force under section 393.1072 issued its report and that "no such legislation was enacted or effective as of the January 1, 2023, reassessment date." Sections 137.080 and 137.115 read the same day: 137.080 lists as new personal property subclass (7) "Solar panels, racking systems, inverters, and related solar equipment, components, materials, and supplies installed in connection with solar photovoltaic energy systems, as described in subdivision (46) of subsection 2 of section 144.030, that were constructed and producing solar energy prior to August 9, 2022", with amendment history ending "A.L. 2025 S.B. 4"; 137.115 assigns that subclass "five percent." Section 393.1072 read the same day carries "6. This section shall expire on December 31, 2022." Senate Bill 214 of 2025, which would have set a $500 per megawatt liability cap and a new assessor valuation rule from January 1, 2026, was second read and referred to committee and did not become law; section 137.077, which that bill would have created, does not exist in the Revised Statutes.

Administered by County assessors, under the State Tax Commission of Missouri.

Checked against Mo. Rev. Stat. § 137.100, Revisor of Statutes of Missouri on

Missouri utility solar rebates — expired

Gone Utility rebate You must own the system

$0.25/wattcapped at $6,250 · Last rate paid: 25 cents per watt for systems becoming operational between July 1, 2019 and December 31, 2023, capped at 25 kW for a residential system. The authorizing statute expired December 31, 2023

Dead twice over — the Proposition C schedule fell to zero cents per watt after June 2020, and the replacement rebate statute expired at the end of 2023 — and utility web pages still describe it in the present tense.

When: Statutory rebate zero cents per watt for systems operational after June 30, 2020. Section 393.1670 expired December 31, 2023.

Who qualifies, in full
  • THE PROPOSITION C SCHEDULE RAN OUT FIRST. Section 393.1030.4 sets the statutory rebate by operational date: two dollars per watt on or before June 30, 2014, stepping down through fifty cents, then twenty-five cents per watt between July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020, and "zero cents per watt for systems becoming operational after June 30, 2020"
  • THE REPLACEMENT STATUTE HAS ALSO EXPIRED. Section 393.1670, enacted in 2018, required electrical corporations to pay fifty cents per watt for systems operational between January 1, 2019 and June 30, 2019 and twenty-five cents per watt for systems operational after June 30, 2019 through December 31, 2023. Subsection 7 reads: "This section shall expire on December 31, 2023"
  • It was capped at twenty-five kilowatts per system for residential customers and one hundred fifty kilowatts for non-residential, and each utility had an aggregate dollar ceiling: twenty-eight million dollars for corporations with a million or more Missouri retail customers, eight million for those between two hundred thousand and a million, seven million for those at or below two hundred thousand
  • THE PRICE OF TAKING ONE, IF YOU DID: as a condition of the rebate the customer transferred to the utility all right, title and interest in the renewable energy certificates associated with the system for ten years. Both Evergy Missouri tariffs still carry that clause, and it is the only circumstance in which a Missouri customer-generator does not own their own certificates
  • Section 393.1030.4 does preserve the possibility of a voluntary one: "Nothing in this section shall prevent an electrical corporation from offering rebates after July 1, 2020, through an approved tariff." No Missouri electrical corporation was found to have a current one on file
  • Evergy Missouri West's filed tariff table of contents — which lists every rate schedule on file — contains no solar rebate schedule of any kind. The only rebate schedule in it is the Commercial EV Charger Rebate
  • Evergy Missouri Metro's filed tariff still prints Schedule SR, the Solar Photovoltaic Rebate Program, headed "393.1670 RSMo (2019-2023)" — but its own condition 6 requires that a system "must become operational on or before December 31, 2023." The sheet is on file; its window is shut
  • Ameren Missouri's rebate ran on the same statute and the same schedule, twenty-eight million dollars over five years, fifty cents per watt for the first half of 2019 and twenty-five cents per watt thereafter, capped at twenty-five kilowatts for a residential customer
  • NOT VERIFIED HERE: whether any Missouri municipal utility or rural electric cooperative offers a solar rebate of its own. They were never covered by either statute and none were read

Authority: Mo. Rev. Stat. § 393.1670 (expired December 31, 2023); Mo. Rev. Stat. § 393.1030.4

What we saw: Section 393.1670 read on 2026-07-29 from the Revisor of Statutes of Missouri, version effective 28 Aug 2018. Subsection 1 verbatim: "For systems becoming operational between January 1, 2019, and June 30, 2019, the solar rebate shall be fifty cents per watt, and for systems that become operational after June 30, 2019, through December 31, 2023, the solar rebate shall be twenty-five cents per watt." Subsection 7 verbatim: "This section shall expire on December 31, 2023; provided however, that after such expiration, the electrical corporation shall be entitled to recover any remaining regulatory asset balance as provided in subsection 2 of this section." Section 393.1030.4, read the same day in the version effective 28 Aug 2025, ends its rebate schedule "and zero cents per watt for systems becoming operational after June 30, 2020" and continues "Nothing in this section shall prevent an electrical corporation from offering rebates after July 1, 2020, through an approved tariff", and conditions any rebate on the customer transferring "all right, title, and interest in and to the renewable energy credits associated with the new or expanded solar electric system ... for a period of ten years". Evergy Missouri West's complete filed tariff (P.S.C. MO. No. 1) was downloaded from evergy.com and its table of contents read in full: no solar rebate schedule appears; the sole rebate schedule listed is "Commercial EV Charger Rebate CECR 161". Evergy Missouri Metro's complete filed tariff (P.S.C. MO. No. 7) contains "SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC REBATE PROGRAM, Schedule SR, 393.1670 RSMo (2019-2023)", issued August 27, 2018 and effective October 15, 2018, whose condition 6 reads: "The System or expansion of an existing System must not become operational until after December 31, 2018 and must become operational on or before December 31, 2023." Ameren Missouri's own "2019-2023 SOLAR REBATES" document, read as a PDF the same day, states the rebates are "part of the Smart Energy Plan (SB564)", "$28 million dollars over 5 years", "January 1, 2019-June 30, 2019--$0.50 per watt", "July 1, 2019-December 31, 2023--$0.25 per watt", and "Maximum solar system size for a solar rebate for a Residential customer is 25 kW". Ameren's current customer-owned solar FAQ answers the question "Are there Solar Rebates?" only with a link for customers who already submitted applications to check status. CONTRADICTING SOURCE, RECORDED DELIBERATELY: Evergy's own help center page "What is the Solar Power Rebate?", read the same day, still states in the present tense that "The solar power rebate encourages an investment in solar technology by providing a rebate per watt of solar energy generated. The rebate is available for residential and business customers in Missouri", with no dates and no amount. Evergy's main private solar and net metering program page describes only net metering and parallel generation and mentions no rebate.

Administered by Ameren Missouri, Evergy and The Empire District Electric Company, under the Missouri Public Service Commission.

Checked against Mo. Rev. Stat. § 393.1670 (solar rebates), Revisor of Statutes of Missouri on

Evergy Missouri West Residential Battery Energy Storage Pilot

Gone Battery rebate You must own the system

No direct paymentEvergy owns, installs, maintains and operates the battery; the participant pays $10.00 per month. Programme cost capped at $2.5 million through December 31, 2025 and limited to 50 residential customers

Missouri's only residential battery program was fifty houses in one utility's territory, the utility kept the battery, and its funding authority ran out at the end of 2025.

When: Capped at $2.5 million through December 31, 2025. Report due end of the first quarter of 2026.

Who qualifies, in full
  • Limited by its own tariff to fifty residential customers, in Evergy Missouri West territory only. Evergy Missouri Metro has no equivalent schedule
  • IT IS NOT A REBATE: "Evergy will own, install, maintain, and operate a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) on the Customer's premise," and the participant is billed $10.00 per month for it
  • Evergy may operate the battery for self-consumption, for charging when energy costs less off-peak, and to manage system load during peak usage — so the dispatch decisions are the utility's, not the household's
  • The customer must own the residential property where the battery is installed, and the service must be single phase 120/240V AC meeting the technology provider's electrical and code requirements
  • If a participant leaves before the pilot concludes the battery is redeployed to another eligible customer
  • THE DATE THAT CLOSED IT: "The RBES Pilot Program is capped at $2.5 million through December 31, 2025." That date has passed
  • Evergy was required to file a report at the end of the first quarter of 2026 addressing the pilot's learning objectives, and is barred from filing for any residential battery pilot, any expansion, or any cost recovery for a residential battery program until that report is filed
  • NOT VERIFIED HERE: whether Evergy filed that first-quarter 2026 report, what it concluded, and whether any successor residential battery program has been proposed since. The tariff sheet remains on file and we did not find a cancellation

Authority: Evergy Missouri West Schedule RBES, P.S.C. MO. No. 1 Original Sheet Nos. 163 and 163.1, filed under ER-2022-0130

What we saw: Read on 2026-07-29 from Evergy Missouri West's complete filed tariff PDF, Original Sheet Nos. 163 and 163.1, issued December 2, 2022, effective January 1, 2023, stamped FILED Missouri Public Service Commission 01/09/2023, ER-2022-0130, YE-2023-0105. Availability verbatim: "This voluntary pilot Program is limited to 50 residential customers meeting the Eligibility requirements below." Programme provisions verbatim: "Evergy will own, install, maintain, and operate a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) on the Customer's premise." Monthly billing: "BESS System $ 10.00 per month". Eligibility item 1: "Customer must own the residential property at which the BESS will be installed". Programme condition 6: "The Company will file a report at the end of the first quarter of 2026 that outlines the results of the pilot and directly addresses the learning objectives that were initially identified." Condition 7: "The Company will not file for any residential battery pilot, expansion of the existing pilot, or otherwise request recovery of a residential battery program until after the report subject to subparagraph 6 above is filed." Condition 8: "The RBES Pilot Program is capped at $2.5 million through December 31, 2025. Shareholders will cover the cost of EM&V." The schedule appears in the tariff's table of contents as "Residential Battery Energy Storage Pilot RBES 163 - 163.1".

Administered by Evergy Missouri West.

Checked against Evergy Missouri West filed tariff, P.S.C. MO. No. 1, Schedule RBES on

Federal residential clean energy credit (§ 25D) — 30% of system cost

Gone Tax credit You must own the system

30% of cost

Dead, and Missouri has nothing of its own to fall back on — the Department of Revenue's 2025 MO-1040 booklet enumerates every credit an individual may claim and never uses the word solar.

Who qualifies, in full
  • Terminated by section 70506(a) of Public Law 119-21, enacted July 4, 2025
  • An expenditure is treated as made when the original installation is completed, so paying in 2025 for a system finished in 2026 does not qualify
  • Unused credit from a system completed on or before December 31, 2025 still carries forward — file Form 5695 with the 2025 return to preserve it
  • Listed here because Missouri has no state income tax credit to replace it: the Department of Revenue's 2025 MO-1040 instruction booklet runs to fifty-three pages, enumerates every credit claimable on Form MO-TC by alpha code and administering agency, and contains the word "solar" zero times
  • Worth knowing in Missouri specifically: section 386.890.13 subjects the sale of a generation unit to Missouri's merchandising practices law and authorizes the attorney general to make rules on mandatory seller disclosures. A 2026 pitch still quoting a 30% federal credit, a state property tax exemption or a utility rebate is describing three things Missouri buyers no longer have

Authority: 26 U.S.C. § 25D(h)

What we saw: Read at uscode.house.gov and matched at Cornell LII. § 25D(h): "The credit allowed under this section shall not apply with respect to any expenditures made after December 31, 2025." § 25D(e)(8)(A) treats an expenditure as made when the original installation is completed. § 25D(c) carries excess to the succeeding taxable year; 2025 Instructions for Form 5695 (dated January 22, 2026) state the unused portion carries to 2026 and that the form should be filed even if the credit cannot be used in 2025. The Missouri Department of Revenue's 2025 MO-1040 Individual Income Tax Long Form instruction booklet was downloaded from dor.mo.gov on 2026-07-29 and searched in full: 53 pages, zero occurrences of "solar". The word "energy" occurs once, in the Form MO-TC credit table, as the Missouri Department of Natural Resources' "Processed Wood Energy" credit, alpha code WEC.

Administered by Internal Revenue Service.

Checked against 26 U.S.C. § 25D, U.S. Code (prelim), Office of the Law Revision Counsel on

Missouri's statewide electrical license is optional

Secondary claims about licensing have been wrong in every state on this site that had a license at all, so this one was read from the regulator's own words. Missouri's Office of Statewide Electrical Contractors publishes the answer directly: "No. The statewide electrical contractor license is optional, not mandatory." Office of Statewide Electrical Contractors

A contractor working only in places that do not require a local license, or holding the local license the place does require, does not need the statewide one. Only one person per company needs it, at supervisory level. The state issues no permits and inspects no work — that all stays local. And there is no solar classification and no solar examination anywhere in the scheme.

What that means practically is that in Missouri the binding requirement is municipal, and the useful questions are which local licenses your contractor holds, which authority is going to inspect the job, and whether they have pulled a permit there before. The net metering statute adds one federal-style backstop: before interconnection you must give the supplier a certification from a qualified professional electrician or engineer that the installation meets the code standards.

What changed for Missouri in 2026

  1. The federal residential clean energy credit (§ 25D) stopped applying. With no Missouri income tax credit, no enforceable property tax exemption and no utility rebate, the return on a new Missouri system now rests on the retail electricity you offset inside each billing period plus an avoided fuel cost credit on the remainder.

    26 U.S.C. § 25D(h), U.S. Code (prelim)

  2. Evergy Missouri West's Residential Battery Energy Storage Pilot passed the end of its funding authority, which the tariff caps at $2.5 million "through December 31, 2025". Evergy owed the Commission a report on the pilot at the end of the first quarter of 2026 and may not propose a successor residential battery program until it files that report.

    Evergy Missouri West Schedule RBES, P.S.C. MO. No. 1 Sheet No. 163.1

  3. Senate Bill 4 created a new subclass of tangible personal property for solar panels, racking, inverters and related equipment, assessed at five percent of true value — but only for systems constructed and producing solar energy before August 9, 2022, the date of the Springfield Solar decision. It is a grandfather for systems that were already running, and does nothing for anyone installing today. A separate bill that would have capped solar property tax liability at $500 per megawatt and set a new assessor valuation rule from January 1, 2026 did not pass.

    Mo. Rev. Stat. §§ 137.080 and 137.115, as amended by S.B. 4 (2025)

  4. Missouri's utility solar rebates ended. Section 393.1670, which had required electrical corporations to pay twenty-five cents per watt, expired on December 31, 2023 by its own subsection 7. Evergy Missouri Metro's Schedule SR remains printed in its filed tariff but requires a system to have become operational on or before December 31, 2023.

    Mo. Rev. Stat. § 393.1670(7)

  5. The Task Force on Fair, Nondiscriminatory Local Taxation Concerning Solar Energy Systems, created by section 393.1072 to propose a uniform assessment methodology after the Springfield Solar decision, expired by its own terms. The State Tax Commission recorded that no resulting legislation was enacted or effective as of the January 1, 2023 reassessment date.

    Mo. Rev. Stat. § 393.1072(6)

  6. The Missouri Supreme Court decided Johnson v. Springfield Solar 1, LLC, holding that section 137.100(10) — the exemption for solar energy systems not held for resale — is unconstitutional under article X, section 6 of the Missouri Constitution. The subdivision remains printed in the Revised Statutes with the holding noted beneath it, which is why it is still listed as a live benefit almost everywhere.

    Mo. Rev. Stat. § 137.100, annotation to Johnson v. Springfield Solar 1, LLC, 648 S.W.3d 101 (Mo. banc 2022)

  7. The Proposition C statutory solar rebate reached zero. Section 393.1030.4 sets the rebate at "zero cents per watt for systems becoming operational after June 30, 2020," leaving only the separate 2018 rebate statute and any voluntary tariff a utility chose to file.

    Mo. Rev. Stat. § 393.1030.4

  8. Missouri voters adopted Proposition C, creating the renewable energy portfolio requirement now in section 393.1030: fifteen percent of sales from renewable energy in every calendar year beginning 2021, at least two percent of it solar, a 1.25 multiplier for energy generated in Missouri, and the rule that certificates from net-metered sources are initially owned by the customer-generator.

    Mo. Rev. Stat. § 393.1030, adopted by initiative, Proposition C, November 4, 2008

Who is allowed to install solar in Missouri

Missouri has a statewide electrical contractor license and it is optional. Sections 324.900 to 324.945 created the Office of Statewide Electrical Contractors inside the Division of Professional Registration, and the office's own published answer to whether the license is required is: "No. The statewide electrical contractor license is optional, not mandatory. If you work only in places where you are currently licensed, or no license is required, you may not want a statewide electrical contractor license." A contractor operating in a political subdivision that does not require a local license, or that holds the local license that subdivision requires, is not required to hold a statewide one. Only one person in a company needs it, and that person must be at a supervisory level and is responsible for the company's work. The state does not issue permits and does not inspect the work — that stays with the local authority, exactly as before. Where the statewide license does apply, an applicant must carry five hundred thousand dollars of liability insurance, post whatever bond each political subdivision requires, pass a nationally accredited electrical assessment examination based on the National Electrical Code, and meet one of three experience routes. There is no solar classification and no solar examination anywhere in this scheme. What that means in practice for a Missouri homeowner is that the binding requirement is local: the city or county where the work happens sets the licensing rule, issues the permit and inspects the job, and the questions worth asking are which local licenses the contractor holds and which authority will inspect. Missouri's net metering statute reinforces the local layer by requiring every generation unit to meet the standards of any local code authorities alongside the National Electrical Code, the National Electrical Safety Code, the IEEE and Underwriters Laboratories, and by requiring a certification from a qualified professional electrician or engineer before interconnection.

Check a company yourself: Missouri Office of Statewide Electrical Contractors.

Read from Missouri Division of Professional Registration, Office of Statewide Electrical Contractors on .

So are solar panels worth it in Missouri in 2026?

Better than Indiana, worse than the quote you are probably holding.

A Missouri homeowner installing today gets no federal credit, no state income tax credit, no enforceable property tax exemption and no utility rebate. What is left is the electricity you generate and use yourself, valued at your own retail rate inside each billing period — and that is genuinely the bulk of the value in any state, which is why Missouri lands ahead of Indiana rather than behind it. Beyond your own consumption the credit drops to avoided fuel cost, which is a fuel-only number rather than an avoided-cost number, and whatever you do not use within twelve months disappears.

The practical consequence is about sizing rather than about whether to buy. In a state with monthly netting, a twelve-month credit expiry and a low export rate, a system sized tightly to your own consumption is worth more per dollar than a system sized to your roof. Ameren publishes the formula it uses to cap system size against your last twelve months of usage, which is a reasonable sanity check on any proposal you are shown regardless of who your utility is.

And treat any Missouri quote whose payback math includes a property tax exemption, a state rebate or a thirty percent federal credit as describing a state that stopped existing between 2020 and 2026. Missouri law subjects the sale of a generation unit to the state's merchandising practices statutes and lets the attorney general make rules about what sellers must disclose, so that is not merely an annoyance — it is the kind of claim the state has an interest in.

What this page does not cover yet

Being explicit about the edges is part of the method. Not yet verified, and therefore not claimed here:

Each of those is queued. When one is verified it will appear above with its own date, and the change will be listed in the record.

Common questions

Does Missouri have a solar property tax exemption?

No, although the statute that grants one is still printed. Section 137.100(10) of the Revised Statutes of Missouri exempts "solar energy systems not held for resale" from property taxation, but the Missouri Supreme Court held that subdivision unconstitutional on August 9, 2022 in Johnson v. Springfield Solar 1, LLC, 648 S.W.3d 101, under article X, section 6 of the Missouri Constitution, which limits tax exemptions to specifically enumerated property. The Revisor prints the holding as an annotation directly beneath the still-present text, which is why the exemption continues to be listed as available almost everywhere. In its place the State Tax Commission tells assessors that rooftop panels may be treated as a fixture of the home whose value is contributory to the overall value of the property and not valued separately, in the assessor's discretion.

Is there still an Ameren or Evergy solar rebate in Missouri?

No, and two separate statutes have to be read to see why. The Proposition C rebate schedule in section 393.1030.4 steps down over time and ends at "zero cents per watt for systems becoming operational after June 30, 2020." A second statute, section 393.1670, then required twenty-five cents per watt for systems operational through December 31, 2023 — and its subsection 7 reads "This section shall expire on December 31, 2023." Evergy Missouri West's filed tariff table of contents lists every rate schedule on file and contains no solar rebate at all. Evergy Missouri Metro still prints Schedule SR, but that schedule requires a system to have become operational on or before December 31, 2023. Be aware that Evergy's own help center page still describes the rebate in the present tense with no dates and no amount — the filed tariff is the record, not the marketing page.

How does net metering work in Missouri?

Under the Net Metering and Easy Connection Act, section 386.890, your supplier measures the difference between what it delivers to you and what you deliver to it over the applicable billing period. If it supplied more than you generated, you are billed for the net at ordinary prices for your rate class — that is full retail netting inside the month. If you generated more than it supplied across the whole billing period, the excess is credited at a rate at least equal to avoided fuel cost, applied to the following billing period. Systems are capped at one hundred kilowatts, your supplier may not charge you standby, capacity or interconnection fees a non-generating customer would not pay, and systems of ten kilowatts or less cannot be required to add controls, tests or extra liability insurance beyond the code standards.

Do Missouri credits for excess solar expire?

Yes, and this is the trap most worth knowing. Section 386.890.5(4) provides that any credit "shall expire without any compensation at the earlier of either twelve months after their issuance or when the customer-generator disconnects service or terminates the net metering relationship with the supplier." There is no annual cash-out. That makes system sizing matter more in Missouri than in a state with indefinite carry-forward: production banked in the summer that you have not used within twelve months is simply lost, so a system sized tightly to your own consumption is generally worth more per dollar than one sized to fill your roof.

Does Missouri net metering apply to rural electric cooperatives and city utilities?

Yes, and this is unusual — on most state pages the answer is the opposite. Section 386.890.2(7) defines "retail electric supplier" as "any municipally owned electric utility operating under chapter 91, electrical corporation regulated by the commission under this chapter, or rural electric cooperative operating under chapter 394 that provides retail electric service in this state." Every duty in the Act runs to that term, so co-op members and municipal utility customers get the same entitlement. The catch is the rate rather than the right: "avoided fuel cost" is set by "the governing body with jurisdiction," which for a cooperative or a city utility is its own board or council rather than the Public Service Commission. So ask your supplier what its avoided fuel cost is — we have not read any individual cooperative's or municipal's figure.

Does Missouri solar net metering transfer when I sell my house?

No. Section 386.890.7(2) provides that "upon the change in ownership of a qualified electric energy generation unit, the new customer-generator shall be responsible for filing a new application." That is a genuine difference from states like Indiana, where a grandfathered tariff passes to a successor in interest at the same premises and is therefore an asset worth disclosing in a sale. In Missouri the buyer files fresh, subject to whatever the interconnection queue and the statutory caps look like on the day they apply. It is worth raising before closing rather than after.

Does Missouri have a state solar tax credit?

No. The Missouri Department of Revenue's 2025 MO-1040 Individual Income Tax Long Form instruction booklet runs to fifty-three pages and contains the Form MO-TC credit table, which enumerates every credit an individual may claim by alpha code and administering agency. Across the entire booklet the word "solar" appears zero times, and the only occurrence of "energy" is the Department of Natural Resources' Processed Wood Energy credit. With the federal section 25D credit also gone for expenditures made after December 31, 2025, a Missouri homeowner buying a system in 2026 receives no income tax credit from either government.

Can I sell SRECs in Missouri?

Missouri is one of the few states where the answer is not simply no, and we want to be careful about how far we take it. Proposition C, now section 393.1030, requires at least fifteen percent of each utility's sales to come from renewable energy in every calendar year beginning 2021, with no later benchmark and no termination date, and at least two percent of that requirement must be solar. Energy generated in Missouri counts at 1.25 kilowatt-hours per kilowatt-hour. And subsection 3 says "Certificates from net-metered sources shall initially be owned by the customer-generator" — both Evergy Missouri tariffs repeat it. So the demand exists and the certificates are yours, unless you took a solar rebate, which transferred them to the utility for ten years. What we have not verified is how a household actually registers and sells them: which registry, which aggregator, at what price. Until we have read that, we are not going to imply a market you can reach.

Is there a sales tax exemption for solar in Missouri?

There is an exemption, but read who it is written for. Section 144.030.2(46) exempts "all purchases by a company of solar photovoltaic energy systems, components used to construct a solar photovoltaic energy system, and all purchases of materials and supplies used directly to construct or make improvements to such systems," provided the systems are sold or leased to an end user or are used to produce, collect and transmit electricity for resale or retail. The Department of Revenue has applied it in a published letter ruling whose facts were a utility-scale solar farm, holding panels, racking, inverters, transformers and tracking systems exempt and site fencing and access roads not exempt. That ruling says nothing about a homeowner. How Missouri sales tax finally falls on a residential rooftop job is something we have not established from a primary source, so we do not claim it in either direction. The Department issues binding letter rulings on request if it matters to your numbers.

Does a solar installer need a license in Missouri?

Not a state one, necessarily. Missouri created an Office of Statewide Electrical Contractors under sections 324.900 to 324.945, and its own published answer to whether the license is required is: "No. The statewide electrical contractor license is optional, not mandatory." A contractor who works only where no license is required, or who holds the local license that a political subdivision requires, does not need the statewide one. Only one person in a company needs it, at supervisory level. The state issues no permits and inspects no work — that stays with the local authority. There is no solar classification and no solar examination. So the binding requirement in Missouri is municipal: ask which local licenses your contractor holds and which authority will inspect the job. Before interconnection, the net metering statute separately requires a certification from a qualified professional electrician or engineer.

How full is Missouri's net metering cap?

We do not know yet, but unlike most states Missouri makes the number knowable, and that is worth explaining. Net metering must be offered first-come, first-served until enrolled capacity reaches five percent of the supplier's single-hour peak load in the previous year. Inside that there is a second limit: no supplier need approve further interconnections in a calendar year once that year's approvals reach one percent of the previous year's peak — so a utility's queue can close for a year while the five percent headroom is still unfilled. Section 386.890.8 then requires every supplier to report annually the total number of customer-generator facilities, their total estimated capacity and the total kilowatt-hours received, and the regulated utilities file those reports with the Public Service Commission by April 15 each year. The figures are public. We have not pulled the current ones, and it is on the queue at the foot of this page.

Does Missouri law treat leased solar differently?

Yes, and in the homeowner's favor, which makes Missouri the mirror image of Indiana. Section 386.890.2(3) defines a "customer-generator" as "the owner or operator" of a qualified generation unit, located on a premises "owned, operated, leased, or otherwise controlled by the customer-generator." Both halves are permissive and the word "leased" is in the statutory text rather than something you would have to argue for. Indiana, by contrast, puts "owned by the customer" in the definition of the thing its statute compensates. We are stating what Missouri's definition says rather than predicting how any particular lease or power purchase agreement would be treated, but a Missouri homeowner weighing third-party ownership starts from friendlier language than most.

Are solar panels worth it in Missouri in 2026?

Better than in Indiana, and worse than most Missouri quotes suggest. There is no federal credit, no state income tax credit, no enforceable property tax exemption and no utility rebate. What remains is the electricity you generate and consume yourself, valued at your own retail rate inside each billing period — which is the bulk of the value of a residential system in any state, and it is why Missouri lands ahead of states that pay only a wholesale-derived export rate. Beyond your own consumption the credit falls to avoided fuel cost, a fuel-only figure, and anything unused expires after twelve months. The practical consequence is about sizing: in a state with monthly netting, a twelve-month expiry and a low export rate, a system matched to your own consumption is worth more per dollar than one matched to your roof. Any payback figure that includes a property tax exemption, a state rebate or a thirty percent federal credit is describing a Missouri that stopped existing between 2020 and 2026.

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.

Get told when this changes

Solar incentives in Missouri moved three times in the first half of 2026. We recheck every program on this site on a schedule and email you when a number, a deadline, or a rule actually changes — not on a newsletter cadence, and not when nothing has happened.