Short answer: if you're buying a home battery with cash or a loan in 2026, there is no federal tax credit. The 30% credit most websites still advertise — the residential clean energy credit, Section 25D — ended for systems placed in service after December 31, 2025. If a page tells you to expect 30% back on a 2026 purchase, it's out of date.
That's the honest version, and it's worth getting right, because the credit is the single most-repeated wrong number in home-battery advice today.
What the credit was
Section 25D — the Residential Clean Energy Credit — let homeowners claim 30% of the cost of qualifying solar and battery systems (batteries of 3 kWh and up) as a federal tax credit. You paid for the system, then reduced your federal tax bill by 30% of the cost. For years that was a real, significant discount, and it's why "30% off" became the default assumption.
What changed
The residential credit was ended early. It no longer applies to systems placed in service after December 31, 2025. "Placed in service" means installed and operational — not ordered, not paid for, but actually up and running. So a battery that goes live in 2026 doesn't qualify, even if you started the process in 2025.
For a 2026 cash or loan purchase, that means $0 in federal credit. Plan around the real number, not the old one.
Why you still see "30%" everywhere
Two reasons:
- Stale content. A lot of solar and battery sites wrote their "incentives" pages years ago and never updated them. The 30% figure is still sitting there, wrong.
- Conflation with the commercial credit. There's a separate credit for commercial clean-energy systems (Section 48E) that still exists. Some sites blur the two, implying a homeowner can still claim 30% directly. You generally can't.
The one real exception: lease or PPA
There's a narrow path where a version of the credit still reaches a 2026 system — but not onto your tax return.
If you lease a system or sign a power-purchase agreement (PPA), a third party owns the equipment. That company may be able to claim the commercial credit (Section 48E, up to 30%) because it's a business owner, not a homeowner. The credit goes to them. It can be reflected in the lease price they offer you, but you don't file for it, and you don't own the system. If a lease or PPA provider mentions "30%," ask them to show you exactly how it shows up in your pricing.
For a straightforward cash or loan purchase — where you own the battery — there is no equivalent.
What this means for your decision
Here's the part that matters most: the credit was never a good reason to buy, and its absence isn't a good reason not to. A battery earns its keep two ways — backup when the grid fails, and bill savings if you're on a time-of-use rate. Both are still true in 2026. What's changed is that the honest cost is now the full cost, with no 30% cushion.
So price it on the real number. If a battery only made sense with a 30% credit that no longer exists, it probably didn't make sense — and you should know that before you spend. That's exactly what our analyzer is for: it runs your actual bill and shows what a battery does for your home, at today's real prices, with no phantom credit baked in.
State and local
Federal isn't the only layer. Some states and utilities offer their own battery or solar incentives — check the DSIRE database for your area. In South Carolina, there's no notable residential battery incentive as of 2026, so the federal answer is the whole story here.
This is general information, not tax advice. Tax rules change and depend on your situation — confirm the current federal, state, and local rules with a qualified tax professional before you rely on them.