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: 1.3 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 $4.22. 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 109 cities where we have enough priced systems, the median runs from $3.35 per watt in Scottsdale, Arizona to $6.53 in Brooklyn.

Prices by year: down until 2019, up since

Two things pushed the total up after 2019: the price per watt rose with inflation and supply-chain costs, and homes installed bigger systems. The records currently run through 2023.

Prices by state

Median for owned home systems in each state’s three most recent years of complete records.

A lower price per watt doesn’t always mean a cheaper system. New England homes 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, 2021–2023:

Permits, design, sales and the truck roll cost about the same for a small system as for a large one, so 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 $13,000

In 2021–2023, systems installed with a battery had a median price of $40,200 ($5.03 per watt of solar), against $27,500 ($4.10 per watt) for systems without one. Part of the gap comes from size: homes adding a battery also installed slightly bigger arrays (8.2 kW against 6.8 kW).

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, 2021–2023:

This says more about who sells each brand than about the hardware. Tesla systems are mostly sold by Tesla itself with standardized designs and online pricing, which is why they come out cheapest. 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; the other rows use the city’s own median.

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 30 cents or more, solar can still pay for itself in well under ten years without the federal credit. Where it costs around 15 cents, the numbers are much tighter.

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 68% of systems in Boston were leased or on a PPA, against 7% in Phoenix.

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, 2024 edition (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.