Updated August 25, 2026. Quick answer: A 2.99% solar loan is usually not cheap money. The rate is bought with a fee folded into the loan principal, and the federal regulator that examined this market found those fees can push the principal 30 percent or more above the system’s cash price – typically 10 to 30 percent, sometimes over 50.
What the regulator found
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s August 2024 issue spotlight on solar financing is direct about it: “The CFPB has found that some lenders include substantial markups and fees that can increase the loan principal by 30 percent or more above the cash price.”
The size range is in the same report: “Hidden fees typically range from between 10 to 30 percent of the cash price but can exceed 50 percent.” Inside the industry these go by several names – program fee, lending fee, finance fee, platform fee, original issue discount – and, most commonly, dealer fee.
The arithmetic, using the regulator’s own example
The report walks through a system that would cost $30,000 in cash, financed “with a $9,000 hidden fee (30 percent of the cash price)”. The loan documents show a principal of $39,000. The advertised rate is applied to $39,000, not to $30,000.
That is why the quoted APR does not answer the question. The number that answers it is what you pay in total against what the same system costs in cash – and the gap is the fee, financed, for the life of the loan.
The question that surfaces it
Ask for the cash price and the financed price as two separate numbers, in writing, from the same installer for the same system. A quote that will not separate them is telling you something.
The calculator on this site does the rest: it takes the cash price, the fee percentage and the advertised APR, and shows what the loan actually costs relative to paying cash.
The fee is an artifact of bundling the financing with the install. A cash purchase does not carry one, and neither does a self-installed kit, which is the other end of the same range: this site’s solar kit matcher sorts that route by project type, utility situation, load range and storage. It is a different job with different risk, not a cheaper version of the same one – but it is the comparison a dealer-fee quote is implicitly asking you not to run. Where the property is off grid rather than grid tied, size the off-grid version first: the worst-month load is what decides whether the comparison is even between two systems that do the same job.
One pitch in that report has since become worse
The CFPB also found sales pitches leaning on the 30 percent federal tax credit. That credit no longer exists for residential expenditures after December 31, 2025. A 2026 pitch that still uses it is not overselling a real benefit – it is selling one that has been repealed.
What this page does not settle
Scope: the CFPB’s issue spotlight is dated August 2024 and the figures above are that report’s. Current market fee levels were not measured and none is asserted here. Nothing in this page describes any specific lender.
Sources
- CFPB, Issue Spotlight: Consumer Risks in Solar Financing (Aug. 2024) — https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_solar-financing-issue-spotlight_2024-08.pdf
- CFPB, Issue Spotlight: Consumer Risks in Solar Financing (Aug. 2024), at 1 — https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_solar-financing-issue-spotlight_2024-08.pdf
Related: The 30% Solar Tax Credit Ended December 31, 2025 · Solar Lease Escalator Clauses · what other liens on a home cost.
General information drawn from the primary statutes, regulations and filings named above, not legal, tax or financial advice. Read your own governing documents or contract before relying on any general description, including this one.