The "sun tax", explained. Smaller than the headlines.
Two-way export pricing is real, it's live in New South Wales and South Australia — and for a typical home it costs far less than the outrage suggests. Here's what it actually is, what it actually costs, what it genuinely changes, and why it is not a reason to panic-buy anything.
Reviewed by the Mission Green Energy Team · Updated July 2026
The honest
short answer.
The "sun tax" is real, it's live in NSW and SA — and for a typical home the cost is small. Per the networks' own published estimates, it's a few dollars to a few tens of dollars a year, not the bill-shock the headlines imply. It is not a reason to panic-buy a battery, and it does not make solar not worth it.
Few energy topics have a worse ratio of outrage to actual dollars. So here's the straight version, from a company that sells solar and batteries and would arguably profit from you being scared:
- What it is: a network tariff that puts a small charge on solar exported to the grid in the middle of the day — when the grid is already drowning in solar — and, in some networks, pays a reward for exporting in the evening peak instead.
- What it costs: for a typical home system, the networks' own published estimates land at a few dollars to a few tens of dollars per year, net. We won't print an exact figure because it varies by network and pricing year — check your network's current fact sheet (Ausgrid publishes a clear one).
- What it changes: not whether solar is worth it — it changes how you should size a system, and how much value you put on using your own solar versus exporting it.
- What it doesn't justify: a panicked battery purchase, a rushed deposit, or skipping solar altogether.
Solar's payback in Australia is driven overwhelmingly by the grid power you stop buying — the export side was already the small end of the equation. If you want the full worth-it maths, start with is solar worth it in 2026 and our payback guide; this page covers the export-pricing piece properly.
What is the "sun tax",
exactly?
It's the nickname for two-way export pricing: instead of the grid only charging you for power flowing in, the network now also prices power flowing out — a small charge for midday exports, and in some networks a reward for evening exports.
Australia's grid was built to carry power one way: from big generators to homes. Rooftop solar reversed the flow, and on mild sunny days entire suburbs now push power up the network at exactly the moment nobody needs it. Managing that costs money — network upgrades, voltage management, curtailment systems. Two-way pricing is the networks' answer: a small charge on exports during the solar-flooded middle of the day, paired in some networks with a reward for exporting during the evening peak, when the grid actually wants your energy. Several networks also build in a monthly free-export allowance, so modest exporters pay little or nothing.
One detail almost every headline skips: the charge is levied by your distribution network on your electricity retailer — not directly on you. It is not an automatic new line on your bill. You only feel it if, and however, your retailer chooses to pass it through in their plans. That's also why two homes next door to each other can experience it differently: same network, different retailers, different pass-through.
It's worth naming the incentive behind the design, because it's the same one behind falling feed-in tariffs: the grid is telling solar owners that midday exports are nearly worthless and evening energy is valuable. That price signal is reshaping the whole home-energy landscape — we track the bigger picture in our state of home energy in Australia report.
How much does it
actually cost?
For a typical home system: a small amount. The networks' own published estimates put the net annual impact at a few dollars to a few tens of dollars a year — and that's before any evening export reward claws some back.
We're deliberately not printing a dollar figure here, and that's the honest choice, not a dodge: the exact rates, free-export thresholds and reward windows differ by network, change with each pricing year, and only reach you at all if your retailer passes them through. Any "$X per year" number you read online is one network's estimate for one system size in one pricing year — it drifts the moment it's published.
What we can say with confidence:
- The published estimates are small. The networks' own modelling for a typical home system lands in the few-dollars-to-low-tens-of-dollars-a-year range, net. Not hundreds. Not a bill doubling.
- The net figure is smaller than the gross one. Where a network pays an evening export reward, it offsets part of the midday charge — quoting only the charge side overstates the impact.
- Free-export allowances soften it further. Where offered, a monthly threshold means modest exporters may pay nothing at all.
For the live numbers, go to the primary source: your own distributor's current fact sheet — for example, Ausgrid publishes a clear two-way pricing fact sheet — and your retailer's tariff details. If the sun tax is material to your decision, those two documents are the only honest inputs.
Where does two-way
export pricing apply?
As at 2026: live in New South Wales and South Australia. Not in Victoria. Not approved in Queensland. Everywhere, the customer-facing effect depends on your retailer's pass-through.
New South Wales
All three NSW distributors — Ausgrid, Endeavour Energy and Essential Energy — have two-way or export tariffs. Ausgrid's version pairs a midday export charge (above a monthly free allowance) with an evening export reward. Check your distributor's current fact sheet for the timeline that applies to you.
South Australia
SA Power Networks has an export tariff for solar customers, with a structure of its own — the published impact for typical systems is generally on the smaller side. As everywhere, what you actually see depends on your retailer's pass-through.
Victoria
Victoria has no sun tax. If you're in VIC and a seller is using export charges to pressure you, that alone tells you something about the seller.
Queensland
Queensland network proposals for export pricing were not approved — arrangements there remain voluntary or a question for the future. Don't let anyone sell you urgency off the back of a tariff that isn't in force.
Everywhere else
Other states and territories don't currently have two-way export pricing in force in the same way, but network tariff structures evolve with each regulatory cycle. Your distributor's website and the AER's tariff decisions are the primary sources worth checking.
Your retailer
Wherever you are, remember the charge sits on the retailer, not on you directly. Whether it reaches your bill — and in what shape — is a retailer decision, which makes comparing retail plans part of the answer.
Does the sun tax make
solar not worth it?
No. Solar's payback is built on the grid power you stop buying, which is worth several times more per kilowatt-hour than anything happening on the export side. Two-way pricing trims the small end of the equation and leaves the big end untouched.
Run the logic: every kilowatt-hour of solar you use yourself displaces power you'd otherwise buy at retail rates. Every kilowatt-hour you export earns a feed-in credit that has been falling for years and was already small — and the sun tax puts a small charge on part of that already-small stream, for part of the day, in two states, subject to retailer pass-through and free thresholds. It's a haircut on the haircut.
That's why the honest answer to "is solar still worth it?" doesn't move: for most Australian homes with decent daytime usage and an unshaded roof, yes — and the sun tax shifts the payback by something close to a rounding error — on the networks' own estimates, a net cost of only a few dollars a year. We walk the full equation, including the cases where solar genuinely isn't worth it, in is solar worth it in 2026, and the year-by-year maths in the solar payback guide.
What the sun tax should change is the shape of your decision, not the direction — which brings us to sizing.
What does it genuinely change
about buying solar?
Three things — all of them at quote time, none of them panic-worthy. Two-way pricing rewards systems sized for your usage and quietly punishes the old habit of oversizing for maximum export.
Oversizing earns less
The old logic of "go as big as the roof allows and export the surplus" is weaker now. An export-heavy oversized system sends most of its extra output into the low-value, potentially-charged midday window. Size from your usage, not your roof — our guide to what size solar system you need shows how.
Self-consumption is king
Every kilowatt-hour you use yourself sidesteps the sun tax entirely and displaces full-price grid power. Shifting loads into the solar window — dishwasher, washing, hot water, EV charging — is the cheapest "sun tax response" there is, and it was already the smart move before the tariff existed.
Export choices at quote time
Export limits, inverter settings and network connection options are now worth an explicit conversation before you sign — and they're configured by your accredited installer or a licensed electrician, never a DIY tweak. If your system already exports less than you expect, that can also be network curtailment — see why solar stops exporting to the grid.
Should you buy a battery
because of the sun tax?
Not because of the sun tax alone — and yes, we sell batteries. Spending thousands to avoid a charge measured in tens of dollars a year is not a plan; it's a fear response with an invoice.
This is the pitch you'll hear: "the sun tax means exporting now costs you — store it in a battery instead." It sounds compelling, and it conveniently ends with a battery purchase. Here's the honest version:
- The arithmetic doesn't carry the purchase. A battery costs thousands of dollars installed. The sun tax, per the networks' own estimates, costs a typical system a few dollars to a few tens of dollars a year. Avoiding it is worth something — but it's a footnote in a battery's business case, never the case itself.
- A battery stands or falls on the real drivers: your evening and overnight usage, your peak import rate, your feed-in tariff, and how much daytime surplus you actually have. If those stack up, the battery was already worth it and the sun tax adds a small bonus (soaking up midday exports, and even earning evening export rewards where networks pay them). If they don't stack up, the sun tax doesn't rescue the maths.
- The full worth-it test is here: is a home battery worth it in 2026 — including the cases where our honest answer is wait, or buy smaller.
If a battery makes sense for your home, it makes sense with or without the sun tax. If it doesn't, a tariff worth tens of dollars a year doesn't change that — and we'd rather tell you so than take the sale.
Who barely notices
the sun tax at all?
Most solar owners, honestly. But some households are structurally near-immune — and if you're one of them, you can stop worrying about this entirely.
You're among the least affected if any of these describe you:
- You have a modest, well-sized system. Smaller systems export less, and where networks offer a monthly free-export allowance, modest exporters can stay under it and pay nothing.
- You self-consume most of your solar. Home during the day, loads shifted into the sunshine, an EV or hot water soaking up the surplus — little export, little exposure.
- You're outside NSW and SA. As at 2026, two-way pricing isn't in force elsewhere — Victoria has none and Queensland's proposals weren't approved.
- Your retailer doesn't pass it through — or structures its plans so you don't see it. The charge sits on retailers, and pass-through is their call.
- You already have a battery or an export limit. Stored or limited energy never meets the midday charge — and a battery can chase the evening reward where one is paid.
Notice the pattern: the households the sun tax touches least are exactly the ones following the advice that was already right — size for your usage, self-consume, don't oversize for export. The tariff didn't change good advice; it just added a small penalty for ignoring it.
Is a seller using the sun tax
to rush you?
Then you've learned something more useful than anything on their quote: how they sell. A tariff worth tens of dollars a year cannot honestly justify a same-day deposit on a system worth thousands.
The sun tax is a gift to high-pressure sales scripts because it has all the ingredients: a scary nickname, real government-adjacent paperwork behind it, and a public that hasn't read the fact sheets. Watch for these moves:
- The inflated number. A big annual "cost" quoted with no source, no network name, no mention of free thresholds, evening rewards or retailer pass-through.
- The false deadline. "Lock in before the sun tax hits you" — when timelines are network-specific, pass-through is retailer-specific, and the honest instruction is simply to check your network's current timeline.
- The pre-decided cure. Whatever the fear, the remedy is always the biggest battery or system they stock, today, with a deposit.
- Geography-blind pitches. Sun-tax pressure applied in Victoria, where there is no sun tax, is not a mistake — it's a tell.
A seller who uses a tens-of-dollars tariff to close a thousands-of-dollars sale has told you exactly how they'll handle every other number on the quote. Before any deposit changes hands, run them through our installer checks before you pay a deposit — it takes minutes and it's the cheapest insurance in solar.
So — what should you actually do?
Here's what we'd tell a friend: read your own network's fact sheet, size for your usage, and refuse to make a four-figure decision over a two-figure tariff.
If you're in NSW or SA with solar: check your distributor's current fact sheet and your retailer's plan, shift what usage you can into the day, and move on with your life — for a typical system this is a small line item, not a crisis. If you're buying solar: size the system to your real usage rather than your roof's maximum, and ask about export options at quote time. If you're weighing a battery: judge it on your evening usage, rates and surplus — the sun tax is a footnote in that decision, for or against. And if anyone uses the sun tax to rush you into a deposit, walk. The tariff is small; the people weaponising it are the actual cost.
The sun tax:
your questions, answered.
The 'sun tax' is the nickname for two-way export pricing — a network tariff under which your electricity distributor charges a small fee for solar exported to the grid in the middle of the day, when the grid is already flooded with solar, and in some networks pays a reward for energy exported during the evening peak. Technically it is a charge the network levies on your electricity retailer, not a separate line on your bill — you only feel it if, and how, your retailer passes it through. It exists because the grid was built to carry power one way, and two-way pricing is how networks manage the cost of absorbing large amounts of midday solar. Despite the nickname, the networks' own published estimates put the typical net impact for an average home system at a very small amount per year.
Far less than the headlines suggest. For a typical home solar system, the networks' own published estimates put the net annual impact in the range of a few dollars to a few tens of dollars a year — not hundreds. That is because the charge only applies to exports in the middle of the day, often above a monthly free-export allowance, can be partly offset by evening export rewards where offered, and only reaches you at all if your retailer passes it through. We deliberately do not quote an exact figure, because rates and thresholds vary by network and by pricing year — check your own network's current fact sheet, for example Ausgrid's two-way pricing fact sheet, for the live numbers. If a seller quotes you a big scary annual cost, ask them to show you the network's own estimate.
As at 2026, two-way export pricing is live in New South Wales and South Australia. All three NSW distributors — Ausgrid, Endeavour Energy and Essential Energy — have two-way or export tariffs, and SA Power Networks has an export tariff for solar customers. Victoria has no sun tax, and Queensland's proposals were not approved, so arrangements there remain voluntary or future. Whether and when it touches a specific home depends on your distributor and on your retailer's pass-through, and timelines change — check your own network's current fact sheet and timeline rather than relying on headlines.
No. Solar economics in Australia are driven by the power you no longer buy from the grid, which is worth far more per kilowatt-hour than anything you earn — or are charged — on exports. Two-way pricing shaves a small amount off the export side of the equation, while the self-consumption side, which does the heavy lifting on payback, is untouched. For most homes it shifts the payback by a rounding error; on the networks' own published estimates the net cost is only a few dollars a year. What it genuinely does is strengthen the case for sizing your system to your actual usage rather than oversizing it for maximum export.
Not because of the sun tax alone — and we say that as a company that sells batteries. The typical annual cost of two-way export pricing is tiny compared with the price of a battery, so buying one purely to avoid the charge means spending thousands to dodge a cost measured in tens of dollars a year at most. A battery has to justify itself on the real drivers: your evening and overnight usage, your peak import rate, your feed-in tariff and your daytime surplus. If those already stack up, the sun tax is a small extra point in the battery's favour. If they do not, the sun tax does not change the answer — and anyone using it as the closing argument is selling fear, not maths.
It nudges the answer toward sizing for your own usage rather than for maximum export. Under one-way pricing, oversizing a system and exporting the surplus was mostly harmless; under two-way pricing, heavy midday exports can attract a small charge, so an oversized, export-heavy system earns slightly less than it used to. The honest response is not to go tiny — solar you use yourself is untouched, and evening export rewards, where offered, can even favour west-facing panels — but to size from your real daytime and evening usage, ask about your export-limit options at quote time, and have the numbers run for your specific network before you sign.
Where this comes from.
Everything on this page is drawn from the networks' and regulators' own primary publications, current as at 2026. Tariffs change with each pricing year — confirm at the source before relying on a figure.