What Changed After the One Big Beautiful Bill, and What Stayed the Same for Commercial Solar

The 30% commercial solar credit is still here. Keeping it now comes down to timing, sourcing, and documentation.

Featuring Caleb Quaid, President, Clean Energy Help. Adapted from the SunSmart Engineering × Clean Energy Help × FlaSEIA panel, Commercial Solar in 2026. Watch the clip: "01 - What Changed After the One Big Beautiful Bill.mp4".

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) did not kill the commercial solar credit. It moved the deadline and put a sourcing-and-paperwork gate in front of it. If you sell, develop, or build commercial solar, that distinction is the whole story for the next two years. Signed into law on July 4, 2025, OBBBA rewired two parts of the federal incentive while leaving the credit itself intact. Here is what actually moved and what didn't.

The two things that actually changed

Caleb Quaid, President of Tampa-based consulting firm Clean Energy Help, which was supporting roughly $750 million in clean energy projects nationwide at the time of the webinar, keeps it simple.

"Everybody's probably heard of the One Big Beautiful Bill, signed into law last 4th of July. It really changed two major aspects about solar. One was the timelines for when you could get the credits... And the other big thing that changed is the introduction of Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) guidance, and mandatory compliance in order to get these credits. So those are the big things: changing of deadlines and FEOC."

The clock moved up. On the residential side, it's over. As Caleb put it, "the residential timeline expired last year, you had to place your project in service last year, so for residential homeowners, no more credits under the One Big Beautiful Bill."

Commercial is a better story, but the runway is shorter than it used to be. The IRA originally aimed commercial solar at a phase-out that ran toward 2032. OBBBA pulled that in. "Commercial solar largely changed it from a 2032 deadline to a 2027 deadline," Caleb said. That leaves two ways to lock in the credit, and you should confirm the specifics for your own project with a qualified advisor:

• Begin construction by July 4, 2026. Starting in time preserves a multi-year window, up to four years of continuity to finish.
• Or place the project in service by December 31, 2027. "Placed in service" effectively means receiving Permission to Operate (PTO) from the utility. Not when the panels go up. When the meter is live.

For a contractor, the practical read is this. Anything you're scoping now needs a realistic path to PTO, and the begin-construction route is how you buy time on projects that can't credibly energize by the end of 2027.

FEOC compliance is now mandatory. This is the genuinely new homework. FEOC, short for Foreign Entity of Concern, limits how much of your project content can come from prohibited foreign entities. The statute ties to China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, and for solar manufacturing China is the one that matters. Under OBBBA, clearing the FEOC threshold isn't a bonus. It's a pass-fail gate on the credit.

Compliance is measured through a Material Assistance Cost Ratio (MACR), which tracks the share of your project content that is not sourced from a prohibited entity. Per the panel, a 2026 solar project has to clear a 40% non-FEOC threshold, storage sits higher at 55%, and the bar steps up over time, to roughly 45% for solar starting in 2027. So you have to think about where your equipment comes from before you buy it.

You don't have to trace every bolt by hand. Both FEOC and domestic content can be documented from a published IRS safe-harbor table, referenced in the webinar as Notice 2025-08, that assigns cost percentages to system components such as the cell or module, the inverter, and racking. You calculate compliance off a standardized worksheet instead of auditing a global supply chain.

What stayed the same

The commercial credit itself did not shrink. The technology-neutral 48E Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit (ITC) and its production-based counterpart, 45Y, are both still on the books. For the rooftop, canopy, and ground-mount work most contractors do, 48E is the one you'll use, a one-time credit worth a percentage of eligible project cost. 45Y, paid per unit of electricity over 10 years, stays a large-utility-scale tool.

That base 48E credit is generally 30% when prevailing wage and apprenticeship (PWA) requirements are met, and projects under 1 MW are treated as meeting PWA automatically. The familiar adders still stack on top: a +10% domestic content bonus and a +10% energy community bonus, plus low-income adders for qualifying projects. The monetization tools survived too. Elective (direct) pay still lets tax-exempt entities like schools and governments capture the value, and transferability still lets taxable entities sell their credits.

A well-documented commercial project can still be worth 30% or more. OBBBA didn't lower the prize. It moved the deadline and added a gate.

Key takeaways

• The commercial credit is still strong. 48E and 45Y both survived, and a base 30%, with adders stacking higher, is still in play.
• Residential federal credits are gone under OBBBA. The program lapsed for homeowners.
• The commercial deadline tightened from roughly 2032 to two routes: begin construction by July 4, 2026, or place in service (PTO) by December 31, 2027.
• FEOC compliance is mandatory. Solar must clear a 40% non-FEOC MACR threshold in 2026, rising after, or the credit is at risk.
• Sourcing and documentation now decide whether you keep the credit, and the IRS safe-harbor table (Notice 2025-08) makes the math manageable.
• FEOC guidance was still interim and evolving as of June 2026. Verify the current rules before you commit.

How SunSmart Engineering can help

SunSmart Engineering is a full-service engineering firm for solar and storage, Florida-based and working nationwide, and we design commercial systems with these realities built in: schedules that hit the begin-construction and PTO windows, equipment selections that clear FEOC, and plan sets that back up your credit documentation. If you're scoping a project that has to qualify in 2026 or 2027, get engineering involved early. Visit sunsmartengineering.com or call 866-786-8655.

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Educational information only, not tax, legal, or engineering advice. Rules referenced (credits, FEOC, safe-harbor litigation, and the July 4, 2026 / December 31, 2027 dates) were current as of the June 2026 webinar and continue to change. Confirm current requirements with a qualified professional before acting.