Why Solar Panel Prices Are Rising in 2026

Here’s the part that confuses people. One of the biggest tariffs on imported solar panels actually ended in early 2026, and yet the price homeowners pay is drifting up, not down. The reason is that a single tariff was never the whole story. Several other forces are pushing in the opposite direction, and a couple of them are new this year.

The tariff that went away

The Section 201 safeguard tariff on imported solar cells and modules expired on February 6, 2026. It had been in place since January 2018, when it started at 30%, stepped down each year, was extended in 2022, and finished at 14% in its final year. On paper that removes a cost at the border.

So why aren’t panels cheaper? Because the 201 tariff was only one layer, and the layers that remain (plus a few that just took effect) more than cancel it out.

What’s pushing prices up instead

Other trade duties are still active. Antidumping and countervailing duties on cells and modules from several Southeast Asian countries remain in force, and new trade cases covering imports from countries like India and Indonesia are in progress. There is also a tariff affecting polysilicon, a core raw material. The combined effect on imported modules is well above what the old 201 tariff added on its own.
FEOC rules took effect January 1, 2026. “Foreign Entity of Concern” rules restrict federal tax credit eligibility for projects that rely on material assistance from China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea. In effect, the government swapped one deterrent (a border tariff) for another (loss of credit eligibility). This mostly bites on the commercial and third-party-owned side, which still uses a federal credit. It nudges suppliers toward non-Chinese supply chains, and those panels generally cost more.
Module pricing has held at an elevated level. Industry trackers put median US module pricing around $0.28 per watt in early 2026, up from roughly $0.25 in early 2025, after a volatile 2025 that saw double-digit increases over the year. The era of panel prices falling every year has paused for now.
Made-in-America preferences add cost. Policies that favor domestic content support US factories, but domestically made panels typically carry a higher sticker price than the cheapest imports they replace.

How much this actually changes your bill

Keep some perspective. The panels themselves are only a slice of an installed system. A residential install in 2026 runs roughly $2.50 to $3.50 per watt all in, and the modules are a minority of that. Labor, the inverter, racking, permitting, electrical work, and the installer’s overhead make up the rest. So a 10% to 15% move in module pricing does not move your total quote by 10% to 15%. It’s real, but it’s a smaller effect on the bottom line than the headlines suggest. For the full breakdown, see how much solar panels cost.

The bigger cost change this year

For most homeowners, panel pricing is not the main thing that shifted in 2026. The federal 30% residential purchase credit (Section 25D) expired on December 31, 2025, so a system you buy in 2026 does not receive it. That single change moves the math far more than a few cents per watt on modules. The full story is in the federal solar tax credit ending, and what’s left is covered in solar incentives in 2026.

What buyers should do with this

A few practical takeaways:

Get current quotes, not last year’s numbers. Pricing has moved in both directions over the past 18 months. A quote or online estimate from 2024 or early 2025 may not reflect today’s costs.
Ask installers what they’re seeing on equipment. A straight answer about their panel and inverter pricing tells you more than any national average.
Run the payback yourself. With the federal purchase credit gone, the case for solar now rests on your local electric rates and net metering rules. Work through is solar worth it in 2026 before you commit.

Prices may keep shifting as trade cases resolve and FEOC guidance settles, so treat any specific figure here as a snapshot from mid-2026, not a forecast.

Sources: Solar Power World and the US Trade Representative on the Section 201 expiration (February 2026); pv magazine USA on Q1 2026 module pricing and FEOC rules. Figures are approximate and change over time.