Free HVAC Energy Efficiency Incentive Tracker

No. Public Law 119-21, 139 Stat. 72 (July 4, 2025) terminated the credit early, and the IRS states that it "will not be allowed for any property placed in service after December 31, 2025". There is no federal residential successor credit. If you have a 2026 installation, the honest answer to the customer is that the federal credit is gone and the remaining money is whatever their utility, state energy office or co-op still runs. This builder flags any post-sunset row as ineligible for exactly that reason — quoting a dead credit is worse than quoting none.

For the 25D Residential Clean Energy Credit, no. The IRS treats an expenditure as made "when the original installation of the item is completed", so the payment date does not control — a 2025 deposit on a 2026 commissioning qualifies for nothing. For 25C the test is when the property was placed in service, which for practical purposes also means the 2026 install fails. This is the single most common way a contractor and a customer end up with different expectations, so record the completion date accurately rather than the invoice date.

30% of qualified expenses, subject to a $1,200 aggregate annual limit covering building envelope components, qualified energy property and home energy audits, plus a separate $2,000 annual limit for qualified heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, biomass stoves and biomass boilers. The second sat on top of the first, so the combined ceiling in one tax year was $3,200. Inside the $1,200 bucket there were per-item sub-caps: $600 per item of qualified energy property, $250 per exterior door and $500 for all doors, $600 for windows and skylights, and $150 for a home energy audit. The limits were annual and per taxpayer, not per job.

Because they are two different kinds of money and the credit side is capped. A rebate is paid out by a program with no federal cap. A federal credit is 30% of qualified cost, then reduced by a per-item sub-cap, then by an annual bucket cap, then by the taxpayer’s own liability. Two $600-per-item measures in one year cannot both produce $600 if the $1,200 bucket also holds a door and a window. The builder shows you the raw figure, the allowed figure, and the difference as an amount lost to the cap — which for 25C was lost for good, since the credit was nonrefundable and nothing carried forward.

For property placed in service on or before 2025-12-31, yes — panelboards, sub-panelboards, branch circuits and feeders were qualified energy property under 25C, capped at $600 per item inside the $1,200 annual bucket. The IRS FAQs do not publish an amperage threshold for the category, so this builder does not assert one; check the qualified-manufacturer documentation for the specific panelboard instead of relying on a number a template made up. For anything placed in service after the sunset the answer is no, regardless of the panel.

A Qualified Manufacturer Identification Number. From tax year 2025 the IRS allowed no 25C credit for an item of qualifying property unless it was produced by a qualified manufacturer and the QMID for that item was reported on the taxpayer’s return. That means a 2025 installation with perfect paperwork everywhere else still got nothing if the QMID was never captured. It is on the documentation checklist here for that reason — it is the field most likely to be missing when a customer’s preparer comes back asking for it months later.

From the program itself. There is no national deadline and this builder deliberately does not default one — utility, state and co-op programs each set their own submission window, and many are first-come until the annual funds run out, which is a harder deadline than any published date. DSIRE, maintained by the N.C. Clean Energy Technology Center at N.C. State, catalogues incentives and their rules by state and utility and is the right starting point. Enter the window in days on the row and the tracker derives the deadline from the installation date, then flags the row when it is due soon or overdue.

It depends on the program, which is why it is a field rather than an assumption. A downstream consumer rebate is paid to the customer. A midstream or instant-discount program pays the distributor or the contractor and the customer sees a lower invoice instead. That choice decides who signs the program application and the W-9, who receives any 1099, and how the job should be invoiced. What is never in question is the tax credit: the taxpayer claims it on their own return, and no program pays it to the contractor. Mixing the two is how a customer comes to believe you owe them a cheque.

No, and every export says so in plain text. Whether a customer can actually use a federal credit depends on their own tax situation — 25C was nonrefundable with no carryforward, so it could not exceed their liability and any excess was lost, and 25D carries forward but still depends on their return. The figures here are estimates from the amounts you enter, produced so that you and the customer have the same understanding of what is being claimed and by whom. Confirm eligibility with a tax professional and against the IRS pages for 25C and 25D, and confirm program rules with the program administrator.