A heat pump, new windows or solar panels finished in 2026 get nothing from the two federal home energy tax credits. The law signed on July 4, 2025, ended the energy efficient home improvement credit (section 25C) for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, and the residential clean energy credit (section 25D) for expenditures made after that date.
Paying early didn’t lock in the 25D credit. In its August 2025 FAQs on the energy credit changes, the IRS said a 25D expenditure counts as made when the installation is completed. A solar system paid for in December 2025 and switched on in January 2026 gets no credit.
What the two credits paid through 2025
25C covered 30% of efficiency upgrades, with yearly caps. Most items shared a $1,200 annual limit: $600 for windows and skylights combined, $250 per exterior door up to $500, $600 for other items like a central air conditioner, and $150 for a home energy audit.
Heat pumps, heat pump water heaters and biomass stoves or boilers had their own $2,000 a year. That put the most anyone could claim in one year at $3,200, as the IRS explains on its energy efficient home improvement credit page.
25D was the bigger one. It paid 30% of the cost of solar panels, solar water heaters, small wind turbines, geothermal heat pumps, fuel cells and batteries of at least 3 kilowatt hours. For most of that list there was no annual dollar cap. The IRS residential clean energy credit page still describes it, now with the end date added. It applied to a main home whether you owned it or rented it.
Both were claimed on Form 5695, the clean energy credit in Part I and the home improvement credit in Part II.
Projects that straddled New Year’s
The two credits use slightly different tests. 25C looks at when the property was placed in service, and the IRS tells people to claim it for the year the item was installed, not the year it was bought. A furnace replaced with a heat pump on December 30, 2025, qualified for 2025. One that sat in the garage until a January 6 installation did not, even with a 2025 receipt.
For 25D the FAQs add a rule for new construction. When panels go on a newly built or rebuilt home, the expenditure counts as made when original use of the home begins, so a house first occupied in 2026 gets no 25D credit for solar installed on it in 2025.
The vehicle credits ended even earlier. The new and used clean vehicle credits stopped for vehicles acquired after September 30, 2025, which left the charger credit, with its June 30, 2026, cutoff, as the last federal break tied to driving electric at home.
Does any 2026 work still qualify for home energy tax credits?
For a homeowner, very little. One credit ran into 2026: section 30C, the alternative fuel vehicle refueling property credit, which covers a home EV charger. It’s 30% of the cost, up to $1,000 per item, but only if your home is in a low-income or non-urban census tract on the IRS lists. The IRS guidance for 30C gives its window as January 1, 2023, to June 30, 2026.
A charger and installation costing $1,800, put in during May 2026 at an eligible address, is worth $540 on Form 8911 with the 2026 return. The same charger installed in July gets nothing.
Checking the address takes a few minutes. You look up the 11 digit census tract number for the home and see whether it appears on the IRS tables. For property placed in service in 2025 or later, the IRS uses the 2020 census tracts. If the number isn’t listed, the charger doesn’t qualify.
Buyers of new homes sometimes see the 45L new energy efficient home credit in a builder’s materials. That one goes to the builder, and it ends for homes acquired after June 30, 2026.
For many households the 2026 item that matters is a leftover 25D credit. 25D credit larger than your tax isn’t lost. The 2025 Form 5695 instructions say the unused part carries to 2026, using line 16. 25C has no carryforward, so any 25C credit your 2025 tax couldn’t absorb is gone.
A solar carryforward, worked out
A married couple had a $27,000 rooftop solar system finished in November 2025. Thirty percent of that is $8,100. Their 2025 income tax, after their other credits, was $5,400, so the credit wiped out their 2025 tax and line 16 carried the remaining $2,700 to 2026.
On the 2026 return they file Form 5695 again to claim that $2,700, even though they spent nothing new on the house.
If their 2026 tax comes in under $2,700, the IRS says on that same page that unused credit can keep reducing tax in future years, so the rest moves to 2027. Here’s how that plays out if their tax stays at the 2025 level. If their 2026 tax is again $5,400, the $2,700 carryforward is used up in one year and they still owe $2,700.
The heat pump row works like this. Thirty percent of $14,000 is $4,200, which runs into the $2,000 heat pump cap. Had the same household also replaced windows for $3,000 that year, 30% would be $900, cut to $600 by the window limit, for $2,600 in all.
Missed it on a 2023, 2024 or 2025 return
The credits are over for new work, but a refund for old work can still be claimed. Form 1040-X can add a credit you left off for 3 years after you filed the original return, or 2 years after you paid the tax, whichever is later, under the IRS rules for amended returns. It can be e-filed with tax software.
A 2023 return filed in April 2024 can be amended until April 2027. Someone who swapped a furnace for a heat pump in 2023 and never claimed 25C could still recover up to $2,000, provided the 2023 tax was at least that much.
Amending a 2025 return takes one extra document. For property installed in 2025, the return had to list the qualified manufacturer identification number, or QMID, for most 25C items, so dig it out of the product paperwork or ask the installer. Insulation and air sealing materials were exempt.
Rebates run on a separate track
The Department of Energy’s Home Energy Rebates aren’t tax credits. They’re paid through state energy offices, up to $8,000 for whole home upgrades under one program and up to $14,000 for appliances and insulation under the other, with larger amounts possible for households under 80% of area median income.
DOE says they’re available in select states, and which states are open has changed through 2026, so the state energy office is the place to ask.
Utilities and some states run their own rebates for heat pumps and insulation too, and those don’t depend on the federal credits.
Three records worth pulling before you file for 2026
- The installer’s completion date for any project finished around the turn of the year, since that date, not the invoice, decided the credit.
- Your 2025 Form 5695, to see whether line 16 shows a 25D amount that belongs on the 2026 return.
- The census tract number for your address if an EV charger went in before July 2026.
Related reading
- How Much Does LIHEAP Pay Toward a Heating Bill This Winter?
- No Tax on Overtime: How Much Will It Actually Save You?
- Government Money Programs for Low-Income Households
The cutoff dates here come from the IRS’s August 2025 FAQs, which the IRS says are not binding guidance, and the 2026 Form 5695 may handle the 25D carryforward on a different line, so a tax professional can confirm how your own carryforward or amended 25C claim should be reported.
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