The Solar Tax Rebate for Individuals in South Africa

The solar tax rebate for individuals was a once-off credit under section 6C of the Income Tax Act, worth 25% of the cost of new and unused solar PV panels, capped at R15,000 per person. It applied to panels first brought into use between 1 March 2023 and 29 February 2024, and could be claimed only in the 2024 year of assessment. It was not extended, so there is no equivalent individual solar credit for the 2025, 2026 or 2027 years of assessment.

If you are reading this in the 2026 filing season hoping to claim for a recent installation, the short answer is that you cannot. The window closed with the 2024 return.

What the section 6C credit actually was

The credit rewarded individuals who added solar photovoltaic (PV) panels during a single, defined window. Three features defined it.

• It covered 25% of the cost of the qualifying panels.
• It was capped at R15,000 for each individual, regardless of how many panels you installed.
• Only the PV panels themselves qualified. Inverters, batteries, and mounting or supporting structures did not.

The panels had to be new and unused, and had to be brought into use for the first time in the window running from 1 March 2023 to 29 February 2024. That last point is what tied the credit to the 2024 year of assessment. Panels first switched on before 1 March 2023 or after 29 February 2024 fell outside it.

A credit, not a deduction

This distinction matters because it changes what the benefit is worth. A deduction reduces your taxable income before tax is worked out. A credit, which is what section 6C was, reduces the tax you owe rand for rand after it has been calculated.

So R15,000 of section 6C credit reduced your normal tax by the full R15,000, not by R15,000 multiplied by your marginal rate. A rebate of this kind is more valuable than a deduction of the same face amount.

Worked example: the 2024 year of assessment

SARS uses a straightforward example in its IT37 guide. Suppose you bought qualifying solar PV panels costing R70,000 and brought them into use in the qualifying window.

Step 1: apply the 25% rate.

• R70,000 x 25% = R17,500

Step 2: apply the R15,000 cap.

• R17,500 is more than R15,000, so the credit is limited to R15,000.

Now carry that into a tax calculation. Say your normal tax for the 2024 year of assessment, after the ordinary rebates, came to R40,000. The section 6C credit reduces that figure directly.

• R40,000 normal tax
• less R15,000 section 6C credit
• = R25,000 tax payable

You would have owed R25,000 instead of R40,000 on assessment for the 2024 year. That saving could only be claimed on the 2024 return. It cannot be claimed now, and there is no carry-forward of any unused portion into a later year.

Why you cannot claim it in 2026

The 2026 year of assessment runs from 1 March 2025 to 28 February 2026. Section 6C never reached into it. The incentive was legislated as a one-year measure, and it was not renewed when it lapsed. Budget announcements since then have not reintroduced an equivalent credit for individuals for the 2025, 2026 or 2027 years of assessment.

If you installed panels in, say, mid-2025, there is no personal income tax credit available for that spend. The rules that applied to the 2024 window do not apply to you.

Where individuals can still find tax relief

Solar spend by an individual homeowner has no current dedicated credit, but the personal tax rules that reduce your bill every year are still in place. Contributions to a retirement fund remain one of the larger levers most salaried people have. Our guide to the section 11F retirement annuity deduction sets out how that works and what the annual cap is.

To see the effect of any deduction on your own numbers, the basic income tax calculator lets you enter your figures and compare the tax before and after. If you want the mechanics behind the number that a credit like section 6C reduced, our explainer on income tax brackets and rebates walks through how normal tax is built up before any credits are applied.