Florida Solar Laws Every FL Homeowner Should Know

This is the list a Central Florida homeowner actually runs into. It is not every line of the electrical code. The details of inverters, batteries, financing, and the bill live on their own pages. What follows is who is allowed to say no, who is allowed to say yes, and which “rules” are only a salesperson’s habit.

The association cannot ban the collectors

Florida Statute 163.04 is the one people mean when they say Florida has a solar-rights law. A city ordinance may not prohibit solar collectors, or have the effect of prohibiting them. A deed restriction, a covenant, or a homeowner association rule may not either. The association cannot use an architectural committee to get around that.

It can pick the spot on the roof. The spot has to face south, or within 45 degrees east or west of due south, and the choice cannot wreck the system’s operation. “Put them on the north slope, behind the oak” is a ban wearing a location request. “Put them on the south face, in a rectangle, not a scatter” is the kind of condition the statute allows. Put your request in writing, with a sketch, and keep the answer.

The statute is about collectors on buildings. A ground-mounted array in the side yard is a grayer question, and a local zoning rule about setbacks can still apply. Patio railings in a condominium, a cooperative, or an apartment are outside the statute. A condo balcony is not a roof. The last amendment to this section was in 2008. The big association bills of the last few years did not rewrite it.

The association’s paperwork is not optional. You still submit the application. You do not still accept a denial that the statute forbids.

The building department still permits it

A state law that protects solar does not replace the Florida Building Code. The edition in force on a permit pulled today is the 8th edition, which took effect December 31, 2023. The 9th edition takes effect December 31, 2026. The permit date is what matters, not the day the crew arrives. A permit in hand before that December date stays on the 8th edition.

The code covers the roof attachments, the wind load, the wiring, the labels, and the shutoff a firefighter uses. Central Florida is not the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone. That zone is Miami-Dade and Broward. Wind design still applies here. The hardware that holds the panels down has to be rated for it, usually with a Florida Product Approval number or an engineer’s letter. The hurricane page is the weather. This paragraph is the permit.

A 2026 change lets some small home repairs under $7,500 skip a building permit. It does not cover electrical work, plumbing, structural work, or mechanical work. A solar array is electrical and it is attached to the structure. The cheap-permit exemption is not a solar exemption.

Rapid shutdown, the rule that drops the voltage on the roof for firefighters, lives in the National Electrical Code that Florida adopts. The inverter page walks through the 30-volt and 80-volt limits. The homeowner’s job is to see the label at the service equipment and to refuse a system that has no plan for it.

The person doing the work needs a license

Florida licenses solar contractors under Chapter 489. The scope includes photovoltaic systems, solar water heaters, and pool heaters. An electrical contractor can do the electrical part that is already inside an electrical license. A roofer’s license is not a solar license. A handyman registration is not either.

Look the license up on the Department of Business and Professional Regulation site before you pay a deposit. Match the name on the license to the name on the contract. An inactive license, or a license in a different person’s name, is a reason to stop.

There is an owner-builder exemption for someone who wants to act as the contractor on their own house. It is narrow, it still requires a permit, and the statute’s solar path still requires a licensed electrical contractor to wire the panels and connect them to the house. Most Central Florida homeowners are not in the old federal grant program that loosened the signature rules for that path. The DIY page is the longer version. The short version is that “I watched a video” is not a license, and the utility will not interconnect an unpermitted system because you own the roof.

The utility has to agree before it runs

Investor-owned utilities are under Florida Administrative Code Rule 25-6.065. That is Duke Energy Florida, FPL, Tampa Electric, and Florida Public Utilities. The rule has been in place since 2008. It requires them to offer interconnection and net metering for a customer-owned renewable system that meets the technical screens.

Net metering, in that rule, means extra kilowatt-hours you send out during the day are credited so they can offset power you take later. Credits can sit on the account through the calendar year. What is left at year-end is paid at a cheap avoided-cost rate, not at retail. The Duke, FPL, and OUC page is the dollar version of that sentence.

The Legislature passed a bill in 2022 that would have walked the retail credit down over time. The governor vetoed it on April 27, 2022. It never became law. As of October 2026 the PSC rule has not been replaced. That is the current law. It is not a guarantee that a future Legislature will leave it alone. Do not sign a 25-year loan that only works if today’s credit is frozen forever. The worth-it page is where that risk belongs in the math.

A few limits are already in the rule. The system’s gross power rating, which for an inverter system is the panels’ direct-current nameplate times 0.85, may not exceed 90 percent of the utility’s service to the house. Systems fall into tiers: 10 kilowatts and under, over 10 up to 100, and over 100 up to 2 megawatts. The utility may not require you to carry a liability policy for a Tier 1 system. It may recommend one. It may require no more than $1 million for Tier 2 and no more than $2 million for Tier 3. A salesperson who says FPL will not connect you unless you buy a special $1 million solar policy, on an ordinary house system, is not describing this rule. Your homeowner policy is a separate, sensible call. The utility mandate is not.

FPL adds its own sizing line. Its net-metering guidelines say the system should not be expected to produce more than 115 percent of your annual use. Duke does not print that same sentence. Duke still pays leftovers at the cheap year-end rate, so building far past your use is a poor trade there too.

OUC is a municipal utility. The PSC rule does not govern it. OUC writes its own interconnection and its own export price, and the date of the application matters. Do not let a Duke explanation get pasted onto an Orlando bill.

The building inspection and the utility’s permission to operate are two different yeses. The county can pass the array and the utility can still say it is not allowed to run in parallel. Do not let a crew energize the system early because the panels are up.

The tax rules that are actually still on the books

Florida Statute 193.624 tells the property appraiser not to add the just value of a renewable energy device to the assessed value of a home, for a device installed on or after January 1, 2013. Panels, inverters, and the storage that is part of the device are in the definition. You do not file a homestead-style form in most counties. You do read the next TRIM notice. If a solar line showed up as taxable new construction, call the property appraiser and point at the statute. The incentives page has the rest, including the fact that this is not a check in the mail.

Florida Statute 212.08(7)(hh) takes sales tax off qualifying solar equipment. The invoice should show it. Six percent on the panels is a number you should not be paying.

The federal credit for a system you buy, Section 25D, ended for property placed in service after December 31, 2025. A lease company may still be able to claim a different business credit. That credit is not yours. The financing page is where that belongs. Nobody should be showing you a 2026 payback that still subtracts 30 percent from a cash price.

The contract, the lien, and the three days

A residential contract over $2,500 has to include a specific warning, in capital letters, about Florida’s construction lien law, Chapter 713. The warning is there because people who are not paid can file a lien against your house. That includes a subcontractor or a supplier you never met, if they served you a Notice to Owner and your contractor did not pay them. You can pay the contractor in full and still face a lien. The practical protection in the statute’s own notice is to require a release of lien from anyone who sent you a Notice to Owner before you hand over the next check. Read a Notice to Owner. It is not junk mail.

If you signed at your house, or at a tent, a booth, or some other temporary spot, and not at the company’s permanent office, Florida’s Home Solicitation Sale Act generally gives you three business days to cancel. The seller has to give you a written contract in the language they used in the pitch, and a separate cancellation form. If they did not give you the form, do not assume the three days already ran out. The federal cooling-off rule is the same three-day idea for a door-to-door sale. A contract signed at their showroom is a different event. The three days are not a substitute for reading the price.

Lying about the credit, the savings, or a government program can also be a deceptive practice under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. The Attorney General has used that statute on solar companies. The scams page has the pattern. A statute does not unwind a contract you understood and signed. It is a tool when the pitch and the paper do not match.

If the company closes after the install, the equipment warranty and the loan are not the same company. The installer-gone page is that split.

Nobody owes you the sun

Florida Statute 704.07 lets you create a solar easement. It has to be in writing, it has to be recorded like any other interest in land, and it has to describe the angles of the sky you are protecting. It is a deal with the neighbor, or with the lot next door if you buy that right. It is not automatic. A new two-story house, or an oak that was there first, does not become illegal because your production dropped. If the sun path matters, the time to negotiate it is before the array goes up, not after the neighbor’s addition is framed.

Shade from your own chimney is not a legal problem. It is a design problem. The association’s right to pick a south-facing spot does not include a spot the oak covers from 10 to 3.

What people treat as a law, and is not

There is no Florida statute that makes a solar lease, a power purchase agreement, or a PACE assessment a good idea. PACE is legal only where the county has authorized it. Orange County said in May 2026 that it has not. The financing page has the lien and the Fannie Mae problem.

There is no statute that lets an installer skip the utility because the homeowner is in a hurry. There is no statute that makes a monitored app optional if you want to know the system is working, but there is also no statute that makes the installer’s brand of monitoring the only legal one. Get the login in your name.

There is no statewide battery mandate, and there is no statewide ban on batteries. A battery has its own listing rules and, in Orlando, its own utility trade. The battery page is that choice. The law does not make it pay for itself.

And the veto in 2022 is not a promise. The rule you are counting on is a PSC rule and a statute that the Legislature can amend. The protection that has been stable is the one about the association and the city: they do not get to prohibit the collectors. Everything about the money is a current rule, and current rules get rewritten. Read the contract against the rule that exists the month you sign, not against a brochure printed when the federal credit was still alive.

This page is general information, not legal, tax, or electrical advice. Ordinances, utility tariffs, and the building code edition on your permit control the job on your house.