What New Federal Tariffs Mean for Panel Prices and Project Costs

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Virtue Solar, a residential and commercial solar installer serving customers across Virginia, is helping homeowners and businesses understand new federal tariffs on imported solar panels and what they actually mean for the cost of going solar.

New rules under Section 232 take effect December 4, 2026. They set a minimum price of $0.38 per watt on imported solar panels and add a 15% tariff on top of that amount. Both stack on top of duties already in place on panels from Southeast Asia, but unlike earlier rounds of tariffs, this one applies broadly to imported panels from nearly every country.

For the past few years, solar distributors have been buying panels for roughly $0.30 to $0.40 per watt, a price that already reflects markups from manufacturers, import arms and distributors. The new $0.38-per-watt floor applies at the border, before any of those markups and before the 15% tariff is added. Virtue Solar's distributors expect panel pricing to settle around $0.50 per watt once the new rules take effect, a figure in line with independent estimates from Bernreuter Research, which projects U.S. panel prices between $0.44 and $0.57 per watt.

Prices are already moving ahead of the deadline. Procurement platform Anza expects imported panel prices to rise from about $0.27 to $0.38 per watt, an increase of roughly 40%. Panels assembled in the United States are not insulated from the change either, since most U.S. factories rely on imported solar cells, which are also covered by the tariffs. Anza estimates those panels rising from about $0.30 to $0.43 per watt.

A temporary anti-stockpiling rule, in effect through December 3, limits how much pre-tariff inventory can enter the country. New import companies are capped at 55 panels a week, enough for roughly two homes. Distributors can still sell panels already in the United States, but that supply is finite.

Despite the headline figures, Virtue Solar notes that panels typically make up only about 12 percent of the total cost of a solar installation. Labor, inverters, racking, system design, permitting and interconnection account for the rest, a breakdown the company outlines in its guide to solar costs in Virginia. For a typical 10-kilowatt system in Central Virginia, priced between $25,000 and $30,000, a $0.20-per-watt increase in panel costs adds roughly $2,000 to the total project, or about 7 to 8 percent, not the 40 percent figure attached to panel pricing alone.

Customers considering a lease or power purchase agreement should expect similar upward pressure, since the system owner purchases the same tariff-affected panels. However, those owners can still claim the federal commercial tax credit, an option no longer available to homeowners who purchase systems outright after it expired at the end of 2025. Virtue Solar outlines its third-party ownership option on its TPO solar financing page.

Virtue Solar notes that trade policy can shift, and some analysts at Intertek CEA expect panel prices to eventually drift back toward $0.30 per watt as U.S. manufacturing capacity expands, though that outcome is likely years away. In the meantime, rising Virginia electricity rates mean delaying a decision carries its own cost.

Virtue Solar, based in Charlottesville, provides residential solar installation and commercial solar services to customers throughout Virginia. Homeowners and businesses interested in understanding how the new tariffs affect their specific project can request a free, no-pressure solar assessment from Virtue Solar. More information is available at virtuesolar.com.