The 0% VAT deadline: what ends on 31 March 2027, and what it costs to miss it

The short answer

Two separate VAT reliefs both end on 31 March 2027. The zero rate on installing solar panels, battery storage and other energy-saving materials in a home reverts to 5 per cent from 1 April 2027. Separately, the temporary zero rate on domestic electricity itself, in place since 1 October 2026, also ends that day and returns to 5 per cent. Neither extension has been announced, and the date governs the day the work is completed or the electricity is supplied, not the day you were quoted.

What actually ends on 31 March 2027

Installation relief confirmed by HMRC VAT Notice 708/6. Electricity relief confirmed by HMRC's Revenue and Customs Brief 10 (2026). Both checked 25 September 2026. The electricity relief is Great Britain only; Northern Ireland stays at 5% throughout.

The full detail of what qualifies for the installation relief, including batteries fitted without solar, sits in our main guide to 0% VAT on solar and batteries. This page is about the deadline itself: what it is worth to move before it, and what happens if a job runs past it.

What it costs to install after 1 April 2027, in Clearline's own prices

Applied to Clearline's own current package prices rather than a generic industry benchmark, the difference between installing before and after the deadline looks like this.

Clearline package prices, published on our own product pages and checked 25 September 2026, already include 0% VAT. The 5% column is Clearline's own arithmetic applied to those prices; it is not a prediction of what a quote will look like after 1 April 2027, since Clearline's own prices may themselves change by then.

On the two battery packages, that is a smaller saving than most people assume, because the relief being lost is 5 percentage points, not 20. The two things worth comparing before either one is the spread between two quotes for the same work, which is routinely wider than 5 per cent, and whether the system pays for itself on its own numbers regardless of the VAT rate.

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What still counts as a qualifying installation

• Residential accommodation only. A home qualifies. A workshop, let commercial unit or business premises does not.
• Supply and install as one contract. The panels, the battery, the labour, the scaffolding and the cabling all sit inside the zero rate when they are billed under a single installation contract for the qualifying work.
• The installation date governs, not the quote date. A job quoted in 2026 but completed after 1 April 2027 falls the wrong side of the deadline.
• Hardware bought without installation does not qualify. Buying panels or a battery to fit yourself is a different transaction, and the zero rate does not travel with the goods.

How much runway a job actually needs

Industry guidance on quote-to-switch-on timelines for a straightforward domestic solar or battery job commonly puts the end-to-end process, from an accepted quote to first export, at around six to ten weeks: equipment lead time of two to four weeks, then DNO notification and MCS paperwork running in parallel. A larger system needing G99 prior approval rather than a simple G98 notification can add materially more, since a DNO has up to 45 working days to respond to a G99 application. None of that is a Clearline-specific promise, since your own timeline depends on your DNO, your consumer unit and the time of year, and it is deliberately general industry guidance rather than a fixed figure.

How to read a quote against the deadline

Should the deadline change your timing

Only if the system already makes sense on its own numbers. A relief worth 5 per cent of a job is smaller than the spread routinely seen between two quotes for the same work, so it is a reason to finish a decision you were already making, not a reason to start one. The one case where the date genuinely bites is a phased plan: fitting solar now and adding a battery after April 2027 means the second job carries 5% on top of a second visit's labour, so working out the whole design in one go is worth doing on cost grounds even without the deadline.

The other dates that get confused with this one

None of the following is the VAT deadline, and none should be confused with it. ECO4, the supplier-funded efficiency scheme, closes on 31 December 2026 with no announced successor. The 0% VAT on domestic electricity itself, covered above, is a separate relief from the installation relief and started later, on 1 October 2026. Keeping the three dates straight, 31 December 2026, 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027, and 31 March 2027, matters more than any single number on this page, because conflating them is the easiest way to misquote all three.

The full mechanics of what qualifies for the installation relief, including retrofitted and standalone batteries, sit in our main VAT guide. Current package prices, all shown inclusive of 0% VAT, are on our solar and battery storage pages, and funding schemes that sit alongside VAT relief are covered in our guide to solar grants and funding.