The short answer
Section 25C of the federal tax code — the Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit — no longer applies to work placed in service after December 31, 2025. The statute now reads, in full: this section shall not apply with respect to any property placed in service after December 31, 2025.
That covers the whole of what people mean by the $2,600 stack: up to $2,000/yr toward a qualifying heat pump or heat-pump water heater, and up to $600/yr toward an electrical panel upgrade installed to support that equipment. Both halves are gone, together, from the same date.
The separate credit for solar and battery storage, Section 25D, ended on the same day. So did Section 30C, which covered part of the cost of installing a home EV charger. For a homeowner planning electrical work in 2026, there is no federal residential energy credit left to claim.
Why this surprises almost everyone
Because it was not supposed to happen. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 extended Section 25C through 2032, and for three years that was simply the fact. Every explainer, rebate roundup and contractor page written in that window said 2032, correctly.
The 2025 reconciliation act pulled the date back to the end of 2025. Pages written before that have mostly not been rewritten, because nothing forces anyone to rewrite them. The result is that a homeowner searching today finds a large amount of confident, out-of-date material telling them the credit is available.
We are not in a position to be smug about that. This page said 2032 as well, until somebody checked the statute rather than a summary of it. The correction is why it now says what it says.
The timing rule, and who it caught
This is the part with real consequences, and it is worth being precise about because the intuitive answer is wrong.
Section 25C keys to when property is PLACED IN SERVICE. The IRS instructions define that as when the original installation of the item is completed. It is not the date you signed a contract, not the date you paid a deposit, not the date the equipment was delivered, and not the date the permit was issued.
- Installation COMPLETED in 2025 — qualifies, claimed on your 2025 return
- Contract signed and deposit paid in 2025, installation completed in 2026 — does NOT qualify
- Equipment purchased in 2025, installed in 2026 — does NOT qualify
- Permit pulled in 2025, work finished in 2026 — does NOT qualify
That caught people, particularly on jobs that ran into the new year for ordinary reasons — a utility scheduling slot, a part on back order, weather. If you are in that position there is no mechanism to appeal it, and no carryforward under 25C to fall back on. It is worth knowing rather than discovering at filing time.
If your work was finished in 2025
Then the credit is still yours to claim on the return covering that year, and this is time-sensitive in the ordinary way that tax filing is.
What your preparer will generally want: the invoice showing what was installed and when the work was completed, the equipment model numbers, and any manufacturer certification statement for the equipment. The credit is claimed on IRS Form 5695.
If we did the work, we can supply what we know — what was installed, and the date we finished and it was energised. What we cannot do is tell you what you are entitled to. We are electricians, not tax preparers, and the difference matters on a question like this.
What this does and does not change
It changes the arithmetic on a job. It does not change whether the job was a good idea.
The panel-upgrade half of the credit was worth up to $600/yr. That is a real amount of money and it is worth being annoyed about losing. It was never, on its own, the reason to rebuild a service. The reasons are the ones that were there before the credit existed and are there now: whether the service carries what you have plus what you are adding, what condition the equipment is in, and whether something is actually wrong. If that credit was the deciding factor, the decision was close enough that it deserves a second look on its merits.
The direction of that caution runs both ways. Do not defer work you need because the incentive went away, and do not let anyone rush you into work you do not need because something is supposedly about to end. Deadline pressure is the oldest lever in this trade, and it is worth noticing when it is being pulled.
What is actually left
The remaining money is state and local rather than federal, and some of it is more useful for electrical work than the credit was, because a rebate does not depend on having tax liability to offset.
- PG&E's residential EV CHARGING rebate — one tier covers a panel upgrade bundled with a charger installation, which is the closest thing left to the old panel credit
- CENTRAL COAST COMMUNITY ENERGY, the community choice aggregator supplying most of this county — rebates EV-readiness electrical work and appliance pre-wiring
- SGIP for BATTERY STORAGE, with a substantially higher tier for homes in high fire-threat areas, which covers a lot of the San Lorenzo Valley
- GOGREEN HOME financing, entirely unaffected by any of this — it is a California financing programme, not a federal tax provision
Programme terms and availability move around more than tax law does — several changed status in the first half of this year alone. So rather than publishing a list that will be stale in a month, we check what is current for your job when we quote it, and say plainly if the answer is nothing.
Where financing sits now
Worth separating from the credit question, because people conflate them. GoGreen Home financing applies when panel work is tied to a qualifying energy-efficiency upgrade — an EV charger, a heat pump, a heat-pump water heater, induction, or solar with battery. A panel upgrade on its own does not qualify. None of that changed when the credit ended, and it remains the cleanest financing route for this kind of work.