0% VAT on solar and batteries: what qualifies, and what does not

The short answer

There is no VAT on a qualifying domestic solar or battery installation in the UK at the moment. The zero rate on the supply and installation of energy-saving materials in residential accommodation has applied in Great Britain since 1 April 2022 and in Northern Ireland since 1 May 2023, and it runs until 31 March 2027. From 1 April 2027 the reduced 5% rate returns.

Two things follow from that, and they pull in opposite directions. The relief is broader than most homeowners realise, because it covers the labour, the scaffold and the cabling as well as the kit. It is also worth less than most homeowners assume, because the rate it replaced was 5%, not 20%.

What qualifies

• Solar PV panels, supplied and installed in residential accommodation. Covered since 1 April 2022 in Great Britain.
• Electrical battery storage, added to the list from 1 February 2024. It qualifies fitted alongside new solar, retrofitted to an existing solar system, or standalone with no panels at all.
• Smart diverters and water source heat pumps, added on the same date.
• The labour, whether the job is supply-and-install or labour-only. Both are within the relief.
• The rest of the job when it is supplied under a single installation contract: scaffolding, cable runs, fixings and the work of putting it all in.

That last point is the one that carries real money. Across a typical UK solar installation, roughly 45% of the cost is hardware, 30% is labour and 25% is logistics including scaffolding and transport. Scaffolding alone runs from around £300 to over £1,000 on a solar job, about 13% of the total. All of it sits inside the zero rate when it is part of one qualifying install contract, which is why the relief is worth more than a straight look at the panel prices suggests.

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What does not qualify

• Buildings that are not residential accommodation. The relief is written for homes. A workshop, a let commercial unit or a business premises sits outside it.
• Hardware bought without installation. The relief is for the supply and installation of energy-saving materials. A box of panels or a battery bought from a merchant for a DIY fit is a different transaction, so do not assume the zero rate travels with the goods.
• Anything installed from 1 April 2027. The date governs, not the date you got the quote.
• Work contracted separately from the install. Zero rating attaches to the qualifying installation. Unrelated building work arranged under its own contract, a re-roof being the common example, is a separate supply with its own VAT treatment.

What the 2027 change actually costs

Installed prices are MCS-derived cost benchmarks for early 2026, before VAT. The 5% column is our own arithmetic applied to those benchmarks. They are illustrations, not quotes, and regional variation is real: South East installs ran 10 to 15% above North East on like-for-like systems in the March 2026 data.

Around £300 to £500 on a solar job, and £225 to £500 on a battery, is worth having. It is not, on its own, a reason to install a system you would otherwise have thought about for another year. It is closer in size to the gap between two quotes for the same work, which is the comparison worth making first. There is more on where the money in a quote actually goes in our guide to solar panel costs in 2026.

How to read a quote for VAT

Whether the deadline should change your timing

Two figures decide that, and neither of them is the VAT rate. The first is what the system saves you every year, which is driven by your import rate, your export rate and how much of your generation you actually use. The second is what the job costs, which varies far more between quotes than 5% does. If those two stack up, the VAT window is a bonus on top. If they do not, the window will not rescue them. We lay out that countdown, and what moving the job forward or back across it actually costs, in the VAT deadline guide.

The one case where the date genuinely bites is a phased plan. Fitting panels now and adding storage in 2028 means the second job carries 5%, on top of paying for a second visit. If a battery is likely at some point, working out the whole design at the start is worth doing on cost grounds alone, and our guide to battery sizing covers where that lands.

Because import rates, export rates and installed prices all vary by region, the version of this arithmetic that matters is the local one. Every county page across our coverage area carries a calculator built on the same model, and the fundamentals sit in our solar guide and battery storage guide. If a quote you have been given does not add up, the help centre covers what to ask.

VAT treatment checked against HMRC Notice 708/6 in August 2026. VAT rules and installed cost benchmarks both change: confirm the position for your own job before you commit to it. Every system is installed and commissioned by our own MCS-certified, fully insured teams, and we are not tax advisers.