The federal credit no longer reaches a purchaser
The 30 percent Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025. A cash or loan purchase made now does not receive it, and any quote that still applies it is overstating your return substantially.
Section 48E, the commercial Clean Electricity Investment Credit, survives at 30 percent and is available to third-party owners of residential systems under leases and power purchase agreements. So the credit still exists, it simply no longer flows to a homeowner who buys the system.
That is a genuine change in the relative position of the options, and you should expect lease and power purchase agreement providers to lead with it. They are not wrong that they can claim the credit. The question is how much of that value actually reaches you in the rate you are offered.
Ask any such provider two separate questions in writing: what do you claim, and what of that value is reflected in my rate. Then confirm the answer with a tax advisor rather than with the sales material, since the person explaining the tax treatment has an interest in the conclusion.
What you get and give up under each structure
If you buy outright, you own the system, you keep whatever it produces, and it is simply part of your house when you sell. You also carry the maintenance and the risk, and you no longer get a federal credit for doing so.
If you finance with a loan, you own it on the same terms, with the debt as a separate obligation. Understand the payoff terms before signing, because that debt has to be dealt with when the house is sold and a buyer will want clarity about how.
Under a lease or a power purchase agreement you do not own the array. A third-party owner does, and they claim the credit. The consequence at sale is that a buyer generally has to qualify for and assume the agreement, or you buy it out, so ask in writing what that involves and what a buyout would cost before you sign.
Arizona has its own credit that behaves differently from all of this. Arizona Form 310, Credit for Solar Energy Devices, is calculated by multiplying the cost of a solar energy device by 25 percent, capped at $1,000. Ask a tax advisor how it applies to your circumstances and to the structure you are considering.
Comparing an ownership offer with a lease offer
These are different products and comparing them on a monthly figure alone is how people end up unhappy. A lease payment against a loan payment tells you very little without knowing what each includes, what happens at the end of the term, and what either does to a future sale.
Ask for the total cost over the full term of each, the escalation rate if any payment rises over time, what maintenance is included, what happens at the end of the agreement, and what the exit terms are. A payment that rises every year for twenty years is a very different proposition from a fixed one.
Then apply the Arizona-specific arithmetic to both. Exported solar is credited below the retail rate, so ask each provider what export rate and what self-consumption share their savings figure assumes. An optimistic assumption inflates a lease projection just as easily as a purchase one.
Confirm which utility serves your address before comparing anything, since boundaries in this part of the Valley change block by block, and verify by entering your address on the utility websites rather than assuming from your city.
The state credit you claim yourself, and the federal one that ended
Arizona still has a state income tax credit of its own, claimed on Arizona Form 310, Credit for Solar Energy Devices. It is calculated by multiplying the cost of a solar energy device by 25 percent, capped at $1,000, and the form provides for tracking credit carryover across multiple years.
Ask a tax advisor how the cap and the carryover apply to your situation before you rely on a figure in a quote. A credit is only worth what you can actually use against tax owed, and an installer is not the right party to advise you on that.
Arizona also exempts solar equipment from state sales tax and excludes it from property tax, so the improvement does not raise your property tax bill the way a renovation of similar cost would. Neither arrives as a cheque, which is exactly why they get left out of people's own arithmetic.
The federal position has changed and much published material has not caught up. The 30 percent Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, so a cash or loan purchase now does not receive it. Section 48E survives at 30 percent for third-party owners under leases and power purchase agreements, so such a provider may claim it and reflect part of the value in the rate offered. Ask what they claim and what actually reaches you, and confirm with a tax advisor.