Solar Panel Cost in 2026: What Homeowners Actually Paid

Most cost guides answer this question with a national estimate. This one uses what homeowners actually paid: 1.5 million home solar systems with a recorded price, from the public installation records utilities and state agencies send to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Tracking the Sun). These are the same records behind our city rankings of solar installers.

Every price below is for systems the homeowner bought outright, cash or loan, before incentives. Leased systems and power purchase agreements don’t report a comparable price.

The short answer

There is no federal credit to subtract in 2026. The 30% residential credit (Section 25D) ended on December 31, 2025. If a 2026 quote still shows a “30% federal tax credit” line, the quote is wrong. Our 2026 solar tax credit guide explains what is left.

Why online estimates are often lower

Plenty of articles quote $2.50 to $3.50 per watt. Those figures usually describe equipment costs, industry benchmarks or the lowest quotes. The records show what completed systems cost, including sales, design, permits, interconnection and the installer’s margin, and the median is higher.

That doesn’t mean you should expect to pay $4.25. It means you should compare a quote with what people near you paid, not with a national average. Each of our city pages shows the local median and the median charged by each of the top installers. In the 103 cities where we have enough priced systems, the median runs from $3.37 per watt in Scottsdale, Arizona to $6.49 in Brooklyn.

Prices by year: down until 2019, up since

Two things pushed the total up after 2019: the price per watt rose, and homes installed bigger systems. Since 2022 the price per watt has stayed at about $4.25, while more of the total goes to batteries. The records run through 2025. There are fewer 2024 and 2025 systems in them so far because some utilities report late. (The headline 7.3 kW counts all 2025 systems; this table counts only those with a price.)

Prices by state

Median for owned home systems in each state’s three most recent years of complete records, where at least 1,000 systems have a price. Massachusetts records nearly stop after 2022, and Wisconsin has too few recent prices, so both are out.

A lower price per watt doesn’t always mean a cheaper system. Homes in New England and New York install bigger systems, so they pay more in total at a lower rate per watt. New Jersey is missing because its records don’t include prices. Texas figures come from the parts of the state that report prices, which is a small sample.

Bigger systems cost less per watt

Homes in the main solar states, 2023–2025:

Permits, design, sales and the truck roll cost about the same for a small system as for a large one, so above 8 kW the price per watt drops as the system grows. Adding panels while the crew is on your roof is cheaper than adding them later.

A battery adds about $12,500

In 2023–2025, systems installed with a battery had a median price of $39,500 ($5.14 per watt of solar), against $27,000 ($4.05 per watt) for systems without one. Part of the gap comes from size: homes adding a battery also installed bigger arrays (7.8 kW against 6.6 kW).

Batteries are no longer the exception. In 2025, 45% of new home systems in the records came with one, and 72% in California, up from 10% nationally in 2023. That is why the median system price kept rising while the price per watt stayed flat.

Whether a battery pays off depends on your utility. It helps most where exported power earns little, as under California’s net billing tariff, or where outages are common. Our guide on whether solar batteries are worth it covers the trade-offs.

Does the equipment brand change the price?

Median price per watt by inverter brand, 2023–2025:

This says more about who sells each brand than about the hardware. Until 2023, Tesla systems were the cheapest; Tesla sold most of them itself, with standardized online pricing. The Powerwall 3 has a solar inverter built in, so a Tesla inverter now usually means a system with a battery, and the price per watt includes that battery. Between Enphase and SolarEdge, the difference is small next to the difference between installers in the same city.

What you get back: payback without the federal credit

The payback period is the price divided by what the system saves each year. The table below uses the median local price and system size, the yearly output of one kilowatt of panels from PVWatts (National Laboratory of the Rockies, formerly NREL; south-facing roof, 20° tilt), and each state’s average residential electricity rate from the EIA (June 2026).

*State median price and size: Texas 2022–2024, and Colorado 2021–2023, its latest records with prices. The other rows use the city’s own median for 2023–2025 (Phoenix 2022–2024).

Read this as a best case. It assumes every kilowatt-hour the panels produce is worth the full retail rate. In practice:

• Exports are often worth less. Under California’s net billing tariff, power you send to the grid earns far less than the retail rate, so payback there is longer than the table shows unless you use most of your solar at home or add a battery.
• Rates change. If electricity prices keep rising, payback gets shorter.
• Local incentives shorten it. New York’s state tax credit and New York City’s property tax abatement, for example, aren’t included.
• Panels slowly lose output, roughly half a percent a year, and inverters often need replacing once during a system’s life.

The pattern is clear, though. Where electricity costs around 35 cents and prices are near the national median, as in California, the best case is about seven years without the federal credit; New York’s higher installation prices stretch it to almost 15. Where electricity costs around 15 cents, it takes 16 years or more.

Buying or leasing

With a lease or power purchase agreement (PPA), a company owns the panels on your roof and you pay monthly. There’s little or no upfront cost, and the company can still claim the federal 48E credit through 2027. How common it is varies a lot: in our city data, about 82% of recent systems in Newark, New Jersey, were leased or on a PPA, against 12% in Phoenix. Nationally, the share rose from 28% of new systems in 2023 to 46% in 2025.

Leasing trades the upfront price for smaller savings over the contract. Before signing, check the yearly payment increase (the escalator), the contract length and what happens if you sell the house.

How to check a quote

1. Work out the price per watt. Divide the total before incentives by the system size in watts. A $28,000 quote for a 7 kW system is $4.00 per watt.
2. Compare it with your city. Look up your city’s median on our installer rankings. Each page also shows the median for the top installers.
3. Price the battery separately. Ask for the solar-only price and the battery price as two lines.
4. Look for credits that no longer exist. A 2026 quote that subtracts a 30% federal credit from a purchase is wrong.
5. Ask what’s included. Panel upgrade, roof work, permits, interconnection fees, monitoring and the workmanship warranty.
6. Get at least three quotes. Price differences between installers in the same city are often bigger than differences between states.

Sources

• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Tracking the Sun, 2026 edition, records through 2025 (CC BY 4.0). Residential systems on existing homes bought by the homeowner; prices before incentives; systems with implausible prices (under $1.50 or over $10 per watt) excluded. Calculations by Solar Power Fix.
• U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.A, average residential price by state, June 2026.
• National Laboratory of the Rockies, PVWatts, version 8: yearly output of a 1 kW fixed roof system, 14% system losses.
• Congressional Research Service, IN12611, on the end of the Section 25D credit.