Lease, loan, or buy it outright
This question changed in 2026. The credit a homeowner used to claim is gone, and the only federal credit still reaching a rooftop goes to whoever owns the equipment. That is an argument for leasing that deserves examining rather than accepting.
What each actually is
You own it. $30,000 up front for an 8 kW system, then free electricity worth roughly $1,859 in the first year, rising as rates do. Pays back in 14.1 years and clears about $29,464 over 25 years.
You own it, and the finance company owns your payments. Watch the dealer fee, which is frequently several thousand dollars folded invisibly into the system price, and compare the total repayable against the cash price rather than comparing monthly payments against your current bill.
You do not own it. A third party owns the array on your roof and sells you the output or rents you the hardware. They claim the federal credit. Whether any of it reaches you is entirely a function of the price you are quoted.
“Leasing still gets the tax credit”
It is true, and it is not the whole sentence. The credit survives under third-party ownership because the owner is a business claiming a business credit. The owner is the finance company. Nothing in the statute requires them to hand any of it to you.
So the question is not whether the arrangement captures a credit. It is what price you are being offered, and whether that price is better than what you would pay to own the same hardware. Compare the total you will pay over the whole term against the cash price of an equivalent system. Escalators, the clauses that raise your payment by two or three percent a year, are where lease arithmetic usually turns.
Two further things a lease does. It puts an agreement on your house that a future buyer has to assume, which can complicate a sale. And it means the equipment is not yours, so the maintenance is not your problem either, which some households reasonably prefer.
Third-party ownership is on a clock
The credit that makes leases work denies itself to solar placed in service after 31 December 2027, for anything that began construction after July 2026. That date has passed, so any new arrangement is working against a hard deadline. Expect that to shape what is offered, and how urgently. The statutory detail.
Four questions that settle it
- What is the total I will pay over the full term, including every escalator? Not the monthly figure.
- What would the identical system cost me to buy outright today?
- What happens if I sell the house, and what does the buyer have to agree to?
- What are the buyout terms, when do they start, and how is the price calculated?
Cash figures above are national medians for an 8 kW system and carry no federal credit, which ended for purchases completed after 31 December 2025. Your own numbers are on the calculator.