TL;DR. The federal Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit (IRC §30C) ended for any property placed in service after June 30, 2026. That deadline has passed. While it was available, residential got 30% up to $1,000 per port, and commercial got 6% (or 30% with prevailing wage and apprenticeship) up to $100,000 per port. Tax-exempt entities, including churches, religious organizations, and 501(c)(3) nonprofits, could claim it through elective pay. Two gotchas ruled out most claims: the property had to be in an "eligible census tract," and "placed in service" meant installed and ready and available for its intended use, not contracted or paid for. No extension legislation has advanced in Congress; a Senate bill introduced in August 2026 would restore the credit, but it has not moved past committee referral. This page is kept as a record of how the credit worked; if you placed a charger in service on or before the deadline, the eligibility and filing details below still apply to that return.
What changed and why the deadline was real
Under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the 30C credit was scheduled to run through December 31, 2032. That changed when Public Law 119-21, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), was enacted on July 4, 2025. OBBBA substituted "June 30, 2026" for "December 31, 2032" in the termination clause of §30C(i). 1 2
As of October 3, 2026, no bill to extend the credit has advanced through either chamber of Congress. A Senate bill introduced on August 3, 2026 (S. 5215, the Cleaner Transportation Access for All Act) would restore the credit through 2031 and drop the census tract rule, but its only action so far is referral to the Senate Finance Committee. 3 The OBBBA expressly accelerated the phase-out of multiple clean-energy credits as a deliberate policy choice. 4 Treating the deadline as soft was never a defensible planning posture.
The IRS confirmed the change in the December 2025 update to the Form 8911 instructions, which now state plainly: "You can't claim the credit for alternative fuel vehicle refueling property placed in service after June 30, 2026." 5
Who gets what
The credit had three distinct tiers depending on who you were and what the property was for. Most articles collapse these incorrectly.
1. Homeowners (residential, principal residence)
- Credit: 30% of the cost of equipment + installation
- Cap: $1,000 per charging port
- Filed on: IRS Form 8911 (with Schedule A for each port)
- Refundability: Non-refundable. If your federal tax liability is $400, you get $400, not $1,000.
- Restriction: For personal use, the equipment had to be installed on property used as your main home. The IRS page does not impose an express homeowner-only rule; renters should confirm that they bore the eligible cost, had authorization to install the equipment, and met all other requirements. 6
2. Businesses (commercial property, the biggest opportunity)
- Credit: 6% base rate, OR 30% if the project meets prevailing wage and apprenticeship (PWA) requirements
- Cap: $100,000 per single item (each charging port)
- What "single item" means in dollars: The cap applied to each port separately, and at the 30% rate it only limited the credit once a single port's eligible cost passed $333,333. A 4-port DC fast charging hub at $150,000 per port that met PWA earned 30% of $150,000, or $45,000 per port, $180,000 in total, well under the combined $400,000 cap. A Level 2 port was nowhere near it (see Example B below).
- Filed on: Form 8911 + Schedule A (one per port) + Form 7220 if claiming PWA enhancement 5
3. Tax-exempt entities (churches, nonprofits, schools, governments)
This was the tier most coverage missed, and it mattered most for faith-forward properties.
Tax-exempt entities, including religious organizations, claimed §30C through elective pay (sometimes called "direct pay"). Instead of reducing tax liability, the IRS pays the credit amount directly to the entity. 7
The IRS published an entity-specific guide explicitly listing "religious organizations" as eligible filers. 7 8 A church installing 6 Level 2 ports at $5,000/port ($30,000 total) that met PWA requirements would have received a $9,000 direct payment from Treasury: not a tax reduction, but an actual cash deposit.
California-specific note for tax-exempt filers: Elective pay does not preempt California state filing obligations. CA-based 501(c)(3) entities should coordinate with their tax counsel on FTB Form 199 and the federal Form 990-T pathway used to perfect the elective pay election.
The two gotchas that disqualify most claims
Gotcha 1: Eligible census tract requirement
Property under §30C(c)(3) only qualified if placed in service in an "eligible census tract," defined as either:
- A low-income community under §45D(e) (the New Markets Tax Credit definition), or
- A non-urban census tract as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau and clarified in IRS Notice 2024-20 9
By the Treasury Department's estimate, roughly two-thirds of Americans lived in a census tract that qualified under one of those two definitions, 10 but distribution was uneven; affluent suburban tracts were the most likely to be ineligible.
How to check: Argonne National Laboratory maintains the official 30C Tax Credit Eligibility Locator. Enter the property address and it returns the 11-digit GEOID and an eligibility flag. 11
⚠️ This was the single most-missed disqualifier in the field. The projects that got caught checked census tract eligibility after signing an installation contract, not before.
Gotcha 2: "Placed in service" means ready for use
The credit depended on when the equipment was placed in service: generally, when it was installed and ready and available for its intended use. 5 Not merely ordered. Not merely paid for. Not merely contracted. Local permitting and inspection requirements still had to be satisfied where applicable, but they were separate from the federal timing test.
Given typical installation timelines:
- Residential L2: 2–5 weeks (permit, install, inspect, energize)
- Commercial L2 (small site, 2–6 ports): 8–14 weeks
- Commercial DCFC: 16–52+ weeks (utility service upgrade is usually the long pole)
By the final weeks before the deadline, a commercial DCFC project starting fresh had almost zero chance of placing equipment in service by June 30, and only residential and small commercial L2 projects already underway had a realistic path. That window has now closed for everyone.
Worked examples (with the actual math)
Example A: Homeowner, eligible census tract, $2,000 install
- Equipment + labor: $2,000
- 30% of $2,000 = $600
- Cap: $1,000 (not reached)
- Credit: $600, claimed on Form 8911 with the 2026 federal return.
Example B: Commercial property, 6 Level 2 ports, $30,000 total, PWA-compliant
- 30% of $30,000 = $9,000
- Per-port cap of $100,000 not reached
- Credit: $9,000. Required: Form 8911, Schedule A × 6, Form 7220 (PWA verification).
Example C: Same project, NOT PWA-compliant
- 6% of $30,000 = $1,800
- Credit: $1,800. A $7,200 difference for the same hardware. PWA compliance was worth pursuing on any project of meaningful size.
Example D: Faith-forward 501(c)(3), 4 Level 2 ports, $24,000 total, PWA-compliant
- 30% of $24,000 = $7,200
- Filed via elective pay: church receives a $7,200 direct payment from Treasury after filing Form 990-T with Form 3800 and Form 8911 attached.
What "PWA-compliant" actually requires
Prevailing wage and apprenticeship was what unlocked the 30% commercial rate. Two requirements, both must be met:
- Prevailing wage: All laborers and mechanics employed by the taxpayer, contractor, or subcontractor must be paid at rates not less than the most recent U.S. Department of Labor prevailing wage determination for the locality. 12
- Apprenticeship: A specified percentage of total labor hours must be performed by qualified apprentices from a registered apprenticeship program (15% for projects beginning construction in 2024 or later, subject to good-faith effort exceptions). 13
Documentation requirements are real. Contractors who haven't done public-works projects often don't have the timekeeping and certified-payroll systems to substantiate PWA on audit. The safe practice was to confirm PWA capability in writing before signing. Form 7220 must be filed for every property claimed at the enhanced rate.
Stacking with state and utility incentives
Federal §30C could be combined with state, local, and utility incentives. The IRS 30C guidance does not say how a rebate affects the credit; for a related home energy credit, the IRS says utility subsidies are subtracted from the cost the credit is figured on, so the cautious approach was to figure 30C on cost net of rebates and confirm the treatment with a tax professional. 14
California-specific stack
| Layer | Program | Status |
|---|
| Federal | §30C tax credit / elective pay | Ended June 30, 2026 |
| State | CALeVIP: Fast Charge California Project | ⚠️ Window 1 closed Jan 29, 2026; Window 2 (DC fast charging) accepts applications Oct 7, 2026 to Jan 14, 2027 15 |
| Utility (SDG&E) | Power Your Drive for Workplaces | ⚠️ Fully subscribed; no longer accepting applications 16 |
| Utility (SCE) | Charge Ready | ⚠️ Application portal closed June 30, 2026; signed agreements due by Dec 31, 2026 17 |
| Utility (PG&E) | EV Charge (formerly EV Charge Network) | ⚠️ No longer listed among PG&E's current business EV programs; its former page now opens PG&E's general EV page 18 |
| State | SGIP (when paired with on-site storage) | ⚠️ Nonresidential storage budgets closed to new applications since Dec 31, 2025 (separate program; applies to the battery, not the EVSE) 19 |
⚠️ POTENTIALLY STALE: CALeVIP project rounds open and close on irregular schedules. Confirm current application windows directly with calevip.org before relying on this for project planning.
Stacking math example (San Diego, SDG&E territory, commercial site, while both programs were open)
A 6-port L2 commercial install at $30,000 total, PWA-compliant, in an eligible census tract, placed in service by June 30, 2026:
- SDG&E Power Your Drive: covered utility-side make-ready infrastructure and offered rebates on customer-side costs; assume $12,000 covered
- Net out-of-pocket: $18,000
- Federal §30C: 30% of $18,000 = $5,400
- Total project cost to host: $12,600 ($30K nominal − $12K SDG&E − $5.4K federal)
The example figures the credit on the $18,000 the host paid. Utility-side work that SDG&E paid for was not a cost the host incurred, and the cautious reading above nets out the customer-side rebates as well.
What claiming it required, by audience
These are the steps that applied while the credit was live. If you placed a charger in service on or before June 30, 2026, they still describe how to file for that year; if you did not, the credit is no longer available.
Homeowner
- Confirm the home was in an eligible census tract (the Argonne 30C Eligibility Locator). If ineligible, the federal credit was off the table, leaving utility and state incentives only.
- Keep itemized receipts: equipment, labor, permit fees, and panel work directly attributable to the charger.
- File Form 8911 with the federal return for the tax year the charger was placed in service.
Commercial property owner (for-profit)
- Confirm census tract eligibility.
- Document PWA-compliant labor to claim the 30% enhanced rate; otherwise the credit was the 6% base rate.
- For DCFC projects, the credit was only captured if utility service was energized and the equipment placed in service by the deadline.
Faith-forward / nonprofit property owner
- Confirm 501(c)(3) status was current with the IRS.
- Confirm census tract eligibility.
- Work with a CPA familiar with elective pay filings. The Form 8911 plus Form 990-T pathway has specific pre-filing registration requirements that took weeks to clear.
- For property placed in service after June 30, 2026, §30C is no longer available and does not factor into project economics.
Could Congress bring it back?
The 30C credit was extended multiple times since it was created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, 2 but the OBBBA explicitly accelerated this phase-out as policy, and no extension legislation has advanced. The one bill introduced since the deadline, S. 5215, has not moved past committee referral. 3
A future revival is not unthinkable, but it is a hope, not a plan. Budget new projects on the real out-of-pocket cost and look to state and utility programs.
Sources
Last factually verified: October 3, 2026. This article is updated when (a) extension legislation is introduced or passed, (b) the IRS issues new Notices or guidance under §30C, or (c) California utility programs that interact with this credit change materially. We log the verification date here, not just the publication date, so you know whether this is current research or a stale page.
Editorial standards: All citations are to primary sources (statute, IRS publications, federal agencies) where available. Secondary sources are clearly identified. We do not have referral arrangements with EV charger manufacturers, installers, or tax preparers; recommendations reflect independent judgment.
Corrections (August 11, 2026): This article previously said renters did not qualify for the residential 30C credit and that it was for a primary residence only; for personal use the equipment had to be installed on property used as your main home, and the IRS page does not impose an express homeowner-only rule, so renters needed to confirm they bore the eligible cost, had authorization to install the equipment, and met all other requirements.
Corrections (October 3, 2026): This article previously said a 6-port Level 2 installation could claim up to $600,000 and a 4-port DC fast charging hub at $150,000 per port up to $400,000; those are the combined caps, not the credit, which was 30% of cost per port ($45,000 per $150,000 DC fast port). It said roughly two-thirds of U.S. census tracts qualified; the Treasury Department's estimate is that roughly two-thirds of Americans lived in eligible tracts. The California stack listed SDG&E Power Your Drive, PG&E EV Charge Network, and SGIP as active; SDG&E's program is fully subscribed, PG&E's is no longer listed, and SGIP's nonresidential storage budgets closed to new applications on December 31, 2025. CALeVIP and SCE Charge Ready statuses were updated, and two citations were corrected to point to the sources that support them.
