Free Solar Panel Scheme: What Government Offers (2026)

Short version. The scheme is real, the free panels are not. Expect to fund the balance of the contract after assistance, verify the vendor and the application only through official channels, and treat any offer that needs your OTP as fraudulent. Facts below were checked against MNRE documents and PIB releases as of 14 October 2026.

Why the phrase persists

“Free solar panel scheme” is a search phrase, not a government programme name. It persists because assistance schemes get compressed into a headline as they travel through social media, and because some advertisers deliberately blur the line.

What exists is PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana, a central scheme with an outlay of ₹75,021 crore, approved on 29 February 2024 and set to run until FY 2026-27 according to MNRE’s 7 May 2024 office memorandum. Its stated aim is to increase the share of rooftop solar and let households generate their own electricity. “Muft bijli” refers to the free electricity the system is expected to generate over time, not to free equipment.

That distinction is the whole article. Everything else follows from it.

As of 14 October 2026 we found no official announcement extending the scheme past its FY 2026-27 period. Treat any message that gives a fixed “last date” or a closing countdown as unverified until you see it on the portal or an MNRE notice.

What the guidelines actually provide

The MNRE operational guidelines for residential CFA set out the standard residential slab. The figures below are from the July 2024 text, which states the slab as effective from 13 February 2024. MNRE amended the guidelines on 7 July 2025, and that amendment is a scanned image we could not read clause by clause, so check it for later changes.

The guidelines include worked examples. A 1.5 kW system receives ₹45,000. A 2.5 kW system receives ₹69,000. A 6 kW system receives ₹78,000. Special category states in the guidelines are Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, the north-eastern states including Sikkim, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep.

These are published slabs rather than an entitlement. An individual application is still subject to eligibility, vendor, equipment and DISCOM conditions.

Four implications are frequently missed.

The cap. Assistance stops increasing above 3 kWp under the standard slab. A 5 kWp system receives the same central assistance as a 3 kWp one, so the additional capacity is funded entirely by you. Size the system for your consumption and your state’s settlement rules, not to chase assistance that is not there.

Modules decide the amount. Assistance is calculated on installed module capacity, not on inverter size. The guidelines say adding a battery or other components does not change the calculation. Off-grid installations are not eligible.

Domestic content. Solar modules must be domestically manufactured from domestically manufactured cells. The guidelines say using non-DCR modules in any form makes the installation ineligible for assistance.

Timing. Assistance is released through an e-token after the DISCOM has physically verified the system and approved it on the portal, and the guidelines say the claim is processed within 15 days of DISCOM approval. You or your lender carry the full contract cost until then.

Reading a quote properly

A quote should separate four figures: the gross contract amount, the eligible central assistance, any independently verified state support, and the amount you must fund.

That arithmetic is illustrative. It is not a current market price, and the ₹78,000 is assumed rather than approved. The actual project may differ on both numbers, which is exactly why a quote presenting a single “after subsidy price” without showing the components is doing you no favours.

The vendor verification guide explains how to check those records, and the full scheme guide covers eligibility and the application steps.

What assistance does not cover

Applicants routinely budget for the panel and inverter and then meet costs nobody mentioned.

Structural work for an unsuitable roof, cable runs longer than standard, a connection upgrade from single to three phase, DISCOM application and meter charges, and any civil work are commonly outside a headline quote. The model consumer and vendor agreement in the MNRE guidelines says site-specific extra work is quoted separately and invoiced with GST on top of the standard plant cost. Ongoing cleaning is also your job, although the vendor must teach you how to do it.

Ask for exclusions in writing. A quote that lists what is included but not what is excluded leaves the gap for you to discover after the contract is signed.

Zero upfront offers: the loan route

A no upfront payment offer can be legitimate. It is a financing arrangement and should be assessed as one.

MNRE’s guidelines expect banks to offer standardised low-interest loans for residential rooftop systems up to 3 kW, priced at the repo rate plus 50 basis points, and to make them available through the National Portal and the Jan Samarth portal. Security terms differ by bank. SBI’s page below lists hypothecation of the financed asset as the security, so ask your bank exactly what it requires.

Bank terms move, so use the bank’s own page. The SBI Surya Ghar loan page, read on 14 October 2026, shows these terms:

Two things follow from the guidelines. If you take a loan, the portal credits the assistance to your loan account, up to the outstanding amount. And the loan does not remove the margin or the vendor checks.

“Pay only your EMI” means no down payment beyond the margin. It does not mean the system costs nothing. Ask for the full repayment figure on paper, and compare it with the quote for the project. If a salesperson will not show it, the word free is doing the selling.

RESCO and utility-led models: free installation, not free power

The second legitimate no-upfront-cost route is the RESCO model. MNRE issued guidelines on 14 January 2025, reported in a PIB release, for two models in addition to the standard consumer-owned route.

• RESCO. Third-party entities invest in rooftop solar, so consumers pay only for the electricity they use and bear no upfront cost.
• Utility-led aggregation (ULA). DISCOMs or state-designated entities install rooftop solar on behalf of households.

The guidelines also earmark a ₹100 crore Payment Security Mechanism corpus to de-risk RESCO investment. That protects developers’ payments. It is not a consumer guarantee.

Before signing any such arrangement, settle these points in writing, because the public guidelines do not fix them for you:

A long term payment obligation attached to your roof is a significant commitment. The monthly number is the least informative part of it. Where you can finance ownership at the loan rates above, compare the lifetime cost of owning against the lifetime cost of the tariff. Our guides to the RESCO model and zero-cost RESCO and OPEX contracts go through contract terms in more detail.

Telling a real offer from a harvesting scam

The scheme is genuine. A substantial volume of advertising invoking it is not, and the tells are consistent.

For a wider fraud checklist, read how to avoid solar scams in India.

How to verify an offer, step by step

1. Type the portal address yourself. Go to pmsuryaghar.gov.in. Registration is done by you. The guidelines say the consumer has user rights to do every portal activity without relying on the vendor.
2. Check the vendor on the registered-vendor pages for your state and district, and match the name to the quote. The vendor verification guide gives the five-point check.
3. Get at least two itemised quotes that separate contract value from assumed assistance.
4. Ask for the module make and model and the domestic-content proof. Non-DCR modules make the installation ineligible.
5. Ask for the inverter make, model and datasheet. Inverters must meet MNRE’s minimum technical specifications, which the DISCOM checks at inspection. If your quote names a Qbits model, see the on-grid inverter range for datasheets. Qbits supplies inverters and does not install systems.
6. Confirm the payment milestones are tied to survey, delivery and commissioning, and that money goes to the contracted business.
7. Confirm the five-year maintenance duty. Registered vendors must provide repair and maintenance free of cost for five years from commissioning under the guidelines.
8. Write down the complaint route: the vendor’s named complaint contact, the portal grievance section, and the national call centre.

State support sits on top, and varies

Central assistance is only one layer. The guidelines allow States and UTs to supplement central assistance, and some run their own residential rooftop support administered separately and on their own conditions.

Because these change by order and differ widely, treat any state figure quoted in a sales conversation as unverified until you have seen it on an official state or DISCOM source. A vendor combining a central slab with an assumed state amount to produce an attractive net price is presenting two assumptions as one certainty.

Ask which specific state scheme is being claimed, under which order, and where it is published. If that cannot be answered, price the project on central assistance alone and treat anything further as an upside rather than a plan. State by state details are in our all-states subsidy guide.

From application to payment: the real sequence

The guidelines describe the order of steps, and each one is a place where a free-solar story falls apart.

1. You register on the National Portal and apply through your DISCOM details.
2. The DISCOM feasibility step applies where your state still requires it. The guidelines refer to the Electricity (Rights of Consumers) Rules, under which rooftop systems up to 10 kW are deemed accepted without technical feasibility approval once the regulator or DISCOM puts that into practice.
3. You choose a registered vendor and agree design, components and financial terms.
4. The vendor installs, runs the safety checks and educates you on maintenance.
5. You update the system details and upload documents, including geo-tagged photographs. The vendor may help through your login.
6. The DISCOM inspects the system, completes the net-meter agreement and approves, sends back for corrections, or rejects the claim with reasons.
7. The e-token is activated with the eligible amount for the actual installed capacity. You redeem it on the portal and the assistance is credited to your bank account, or to your loan account if you borrowed.

None of those steps involves paying an agent who contacted you first.

After approval, keep the paperwork

Assistance is disbursed against a completed and verified installation, so the records created at commissioning are what close the process.

Keep the sanctioned application, the final itemised invoice, the commissioning record, the equipment serial numbers, the warranty documents and the DISCOM approval together. If disbursement is delayed, those documents are what an escalation rests on, and reassembling them months later is considerably harder than filing them at the time. If something goes wrong, the portal’s grievance route gives each complaint a tracking ID and is meant to resolve it within 30 days according to the guidelines.

What to do next

Confirm your DISCOM and sanctioned connection, get at least two itemised quotes that separate contract value from assumed assistance, verify each vendor through the official channel, and check the equipment documents for the exact models proposed. Then decide on the arithmetic in front of you rather than on a headline. A properly quoted system with a clear balance to fund is a better outcome than an advertised free one.

The PM Surya Ghar complete guide covers eligibility, documents and the application steps for a legitimate application.

Sources checked on 14 October 2026:

• MNRE, operational guidelines for residential CFA, July 2024 text; MNRE amendment of 7 July 2025 (scanned, not read clause by clause).
• MNRE office memorandum of 7 May 2024 (outlay, approval date, FY 2026-27 period).
• PIB, 14 January 2025 release on RESCO and ULA guidelines, read through search results because the PIB page was not directly retrievable.
• SBI, Surya Ghar loan page, rate as on 15 December 2025.
• pmsuryaghar.gov.in returned an access error to our automated checks, so live portal labels were not viewed directly.