Solar Subsidy 2026: Central + State Schemes, Every State Compared

Two homeowners in neighbouring states buy the identical 3 kW rooftop system in the same week, from installers quoting within ₹4,000 of each other. One ends up ₹78,000 lighter on net cost. The other ends up ₹1,08,000 lighter. Nothing about the hardware explains the gap. The difference is entirely the state top-up sitting on top of the central subsidy, and whether that state’s nodal agency still had budget left in the quarter. This is the least understood part of Indian rooftop solar economics, and it is the part that changes fastest. Below is a reference table for the major states, along with the eligibility rules, the ALMM and DCR requirements, the new Give It Up route, disbursement timelines, and the rejection reasons we see most often in the field.

Read this first. State subsidy schemes are re-budgeted every financial year and several are capped by installation count, not by date. Figures below marked “confirm with agency” are ones we could not verify to a current official source at the time of writing, and we have deliberately left them blank rather than guess. Verify your state’s live number with the state nodal agency before you sign anything.

TL;DR

• Central CFA under PM Surya Ghar is ₹30,000/kW for the first 2 kW plus ₹18,000 for the third kW, hard capped at ₹78,000 for a 3 kW residential system.
• A 5 kW or 10 kW home system still gets ₹78,000 from the centre, so the marginal kW past 3 kW is fully self-funded.
• Roughly 14 states report an additional top-up and around 22 run central-only, so in most of India the ₹78,000 is the whole story.
• Where a top-up exists: Uttar Pradesh ₹15,000/kW capped at ₹30,000, Gujarat a reported ₹10,000/kW under Surya Gujarat, Rajasthan a reported ₹17,000, and Delhi both a capital subsidy of ₹2,000/kW capped at ₹10,000 and a generation-based incentive of ₹3 per unit up to 3 kW or ₹2 per unit above, for five years.
• Every state figure below is reported from secondary sources and re-budgeted annually, so confirm the live number with your nodal agency before quoting it to a customer.
• The central subsidy is paid by Direct Benefit Transfer only after DISCOM commissioning and net meter recording, typically 30 to 45 days for clean files.
• Non-DCR modules are now permitted for households that formally forgo the subsidy, for commissioning up to 31 March 2027.

Short version. In 2026 every Indian state receives the same central rooftop solar subsidy: ₹30,000 per kW for the first two kilowatts and ₹18,000 for the third, capped at ₹78,000 at 3 kW, paid by DBT after DISCOM commissioning. State top-ups vary from nothing in most states to a reported ₹30,000 in Uttar Pradesh, are administered by state renewable energy agencies, and are re-budgeted annually. Confirm your state’s live figure before quoting.

If you have not yet read the scheme mechanics end to end, start with our complete guide to PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana, which covers the application journey, portal steps, and net metering in detail. This page is the money reference that sits beside it.

How the central subsidy is actually calculated

The central Central Financial Assistance is slab-based, not percentage-based. That distinction matters, because a lot of published material still describes it as “60% of cost”, which is a rough historical approximation and not what the portal pays.

Two consequences follow. First, the subsidy per rupee spent is highest at exactly 3 kW, which is why the 3 kW band dominates residential volumes across India. Second, if you genuinely need 5 kW for an air-conditioned home, you should size for load and not for subsidy, because sizing down to 3 kW to “maximise subsidy” leaves you importing expensive units for the next 25 years. Our system sizing calculator exists precisely for that decision.

Group housing societies and RWAs are handled separately, with a per-kW rate for common facilities such as lifts, pumps, and corridor lighting. That capacity is not counted against individual flat owners, so a flat owner can still claim the residential slab for their own connection.

State-by-state subsidy table for 2026

Read this table as a starting point for a phone call, not as a settlement statement. The effective total column assumes a 3 kW residential system and assumes the state top-up is live and unexhausted.

We would rather publish twenty honest blanks than twenty confident numbers that cost an installer a customer’s trust three months later. If you find a notified state order that fills one of these gaps, send it to us and we will update the row with the order number.

Who is eligible

The eligibility rules are narrower than most people assume, and three of them account for the majority of avoidable rejections.

The applicant must be an Indian resident with a residential electricity connection in their own name. The rooftop must be owned by the applicant or the applicant must hold documented rights to use it, which is the sticking point for tenants and for jointly held ancestral property. The connection must not already have drawn a rooftop solar subsidy under any earlier central scheme, and the installed DC capacity must sit within the sanctioned load unless you first apply for a load enhancement.

Commercial and industrial connections are outside the residential scheme entirely. So are agricultural connections, which route through PM-KUSUM instead. A shop with a domestic tariff connection upstairs does not qualify for the shop’s load, only for the residential connection.

One more rule catches people out. The bank account receiving the DBT must match the name on the electricity connection. A connection in a late father’s name with the son’s bank account attached will fail, and the fix is a name transfer at the DISCOM before you apply, not after.

ALMM and DCR: the two checks that fail claims

These are separate requirements and confusing them is expensive.

ALMM, the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers, is MNRE’s register of solar equipment cleared for use in government-supported projects. List-I covers modules, List-II covers cells, and inverters sit on their own approved list. If a model is not on the relevant list on the date of commissioning, it does not count, regardless of how good the hardware is.

DCR, the Domestic Content Requirement, goes a layer deeper. For subsidised residential rooftop, DCR means the module must be manufactured in India using Indian-made cells. An Indian-assembled module using imported cells is ALMM List-I eligible for some purposes but is not DCR-compliant, and that single distinction is behind a large share of last-minute installer scrambles.

Practically, this means you should get three things in writing before any advance payment: the exact module make and model with its DCR declaration, the exact inverter make and model with its approval reference, and a commitment that the models installed will match the models quoted. Substitution at delivery is common and it is the moment your subsidy is quietly put at risk. Choosing a listed inverter is the easy half of this problem, and our on-grid inverter range is built specifically for subsidised residential work.

The Give It Up option, and why most homes should not take it

MNRE has permitted residential rooftop projects under PM Surya Ghar to use non-DCR modules where the household formally declines central financial assistance, for systems commissioned up to 31 March 2027. The purpose is supply relief: domestic cell capacity has been the binding constraint on DCR module availability, and this route lets willing households proceed without waiting.

Run the arithmetic before anyone talks you into it. On a 3 kW system, non-DCR modules typically save somewhere in the ₹8,000 to ₹15,000 range against DCR equivalents at current market spreads. Forgoing the central CFA costs you ₹78,000. The exception, and it is a genuine one, is a household in a district where DCR supply has stalled for months and the alternative is not installing at all, or a household whose eligibility is already broken for an unrelated reason such as a connection in the wrong name.

Be alert to how this can be mis-sold. A vendor holding non-DCR stock has a real incentive to describe Give It Up as a “faster track” without foregrounding that you are surrendering ₹78,000. If an installer raises the option before you have raised a supply problem, ask them directly what DCR-compliant module they can supply and by when.

How to apply, step by step

1. Register on the national portal at pmsuryaghar.gov.in with your state, DISCOM, and consumer number.
2. Log in and submit the application for rooftop solar with your proposed capacity.
3. Wait for DISCOM technical feasibility approval, which checks your sanctioned load, transformer capacity, and connection status.
4. Select a DISCOM-empanelled vendor and execute the work. Only an empanelled vendor can file the commissioning report, which is why choosing an empanelled vendor is a subsidy decision and not merely a quality decision.
5. Submit plant details and apply for the net meter once installation is complete.
6. The DISCOM inspects, installs the net meter, and issues the commissioning certificate.
7. Submit bank account details and a cancelled cheque on the portal.
8. The central CFA arrives by DBT. Any state top-up runs as a parallel process through the state nodal agency.

Note step 3. Feasibility approval before installation is not a formality you can skip and regularise later. Systems installed ahead of approval are the single hardest category to rescue.

Disbursement timelines you should actually plan around

MNRE’s stated target for the central CFA is 30 days from acceptance of the commissioning report. In DISCOM circles with staffed rooftop cells, clean applications do land in 30 to 45 days. Where the circle is understaffed or the file has any discrepancy, 60 to 90 days is a realistic outer band, and the delay is almost always sitting at the DISCOM stage rather than at the treasury stage.

State top-ups run slower. Because they draw on a state budget line released in tranches, 60 to 120 days is common and quarter-end release patterns are real. If a state agency has exhausted its allocation for the quarter, your file waits for the next release even though it was approved.

Plan your cash flow on the assumption that you pay the full installed cost first and recover the subsidy afterwards. Any vendor offering to “adjust the subsidy in the invoice” is either financing it themselves, in which case ask what that costs you, or is about to hold your DBT.

Common rejection reasons, and which ones are fixable

The pattern is obvious once you lay it out. Almost every rejection reason is cheap to prevent and expensive to cure. Thirty minutes of document checking before you pay an advance is the highest-return half hour in the entire process.

What most people get wrong about state subsidies

The mistake is treating a state top-up as an entitlement. It is a budget line. Central CFA is demand-driven and funded to a national outlay. A state top-up is a fixed pot that runs out, and in several states it is capped by installation count rather than by financial year, which means it can close in month seven with no announcement.

That leads to a practical rule for anyone quoting: never put an unconfirmed state top-up in the customer-facing net cost. Put the central ₹78,000 in the net cost, and show the state top-up as a separate line labelled as subject to confirmation. Installers who do this have far fewer angry calls in month four.

There is a second, quieter mistake. People compare states on subsidy alone and ignore tariff. A ₹30,000 top-up in a state with a ₹4.50 residential slab is worth less over 25 years than no top-up in a state with an ₹8.50 slab, because the recurring saving dwarfs the one-time grant. Subsidy shortens payback. Tariff determines lifetime value.

Sizing your system when subsidy is capped at 3 kW

Because the central ceiling bites at 3 kW, the honest question for most homes is whether to stop there or go past it. A rough guide from what we see in Indian residential installs:

• Monthly consumption under 250 units, no air conditioning: 2 kW to 3 kW, and the subsidy covers a large share of it.
• 250 to 450 units with one or two air conditioners: 3 kW to 5 kW. The subsidy stays at ₹78,000 and the extra 2 kW is self-funded at roughly ₹50,000 to ₹60,000 per kW installed.
• Above 450 units: size to load. At this consumption the payback on the unsubsidised kilowatts is usually still under six years, because you are displacing your highest tariff slab first.

The marginal kilowatt past 3 kW pays back on tariff alone, not on subsidy. In high-tariff states that is a comfortable decision. In low-tariff states it deserves a spreadsheet.

Gujarat runs its own scheme on top, detailed in the Surya Gujarat scheme guide.

The bottom line

• Budget on the central ₹78,000 at 3 kW as the reliable number, because it is identical in every state and it is the one you can quote without a phone call.
• Call your state nodal agency before you count on any top-up, and ask two questions: is the scheme currently open, and is the allocation for this quarter exhausted.
• Verify the module DCR declaration and the inverter approval reference in writing before you pay an advance, then get a quote that separates confirmed subsidy from expected subsidy. Ask the Qbits team if you want that worked through for your state and DISCOM.