Is plug-in solar legal in the US? State laws in 2026

Until 2025, no US state had a law written for plug-in solar. Utah went first with HB 340, which took effect on 7 May 2025 and let residents plug in a kit of up to 1,200 watts without an interconnection agreement. By November 2026, nine more states had followed.

The laws share a template. Most cap a kit at 1,200 W, drop the paperwork utilities normally require for solar, and ask for equipment certified by a national testing lab. The details differ more than you’d expect, though, especially on start dates and on what landlords and HOAs can still do.

States with a plug-in solar law

Status as of 4 November 2026. Where trackers disagreed on a start date, we’ve used the later one.

State	Law	Size limit	Status
Utah	HB 340 (2025)	1,200 W	In force since 7 May 2025
Maine	LD 1730	420 W, or 1,200 W with an electrician	In force since July 2026
Vermont	S.202	1,200 W	In force since 1 July 2026
Maryland	HB 1532	1,200 W	In force by October 2026
Connecticut	HB 5340	1,200 W, one per meter	In force since 1 October 2026
Colorado	HB26-1007	1,920 W (reported)	Signed; full effect 1 January 2027
Virginia	HB 395 / SB 250	1,200 W	Signed; starts 1 January 2027
New Hampshire	SB 540	1,200 W, one per meter	Signed; starts 1 January 2027
California	SB 868	1,200 W per home	Signed; starts 1 January 2027
New Jersey	S2368 / A4836	1,200 W	Signed; starts 1 March 2027

A few points stand out:

• Maine has two tiers. Kits up to 420 W can simply be plugged in. Bigger kits, up to 1,200 W, need a licensed electrician and a dedicated outlet.
• Colorado’s figure of 1,920 W comes from state trackers rather than the bill text we could check, so treat it as provisional. Colorado Public Radio reported that the law takes full effect at the start of 2027, and the state utility commission has until the end of 2026 to rewrite its interconnection rules.
• Virginia passed identical House and Senate bills, signed on 22 April 2026. The relevant section of the state code is labeled as effective 1 January 2027, and the state was asked to publish a utility notification form before then.
• California signed its law on 30 September 2026. It requires UL 3700 certified equipment or an equivalent, caps output at 1,200 W per home, and exempts these kits from the utility’s interconnection application.
• New Jersey signed on 1 September 2026, and the law takes effect six months later, on 1 March 2027, to give the state’s utility regulator time to prepare.

What the laws have in common

Strip away the differences and most of these laws do four things.

They cap the size. 1,200 W is the common limit. That’s about 10 amps at 120 volts, or roughly what three or four typical panels feed through one microinverter, and enough to cover a home’s daytime background load in good sun.

They remove the interconnection agreement. Normally a utility reviews every solar system before it connects, which takes weeks and sometimes fees. The plug-in laws drop that step for small kits. Some, like New Hampshire’s, also bar utilities from charging fees or demanding approval.

They require certified equipment. Most require a kit listed by a nationally recognized testing laboratory. Several name UL 3700 specifically, the first US safety standard written for plug-in solar, which was published at the end of 2025.

They limit you to one kit. Usually one device per meter or per home, so you can’t stack two 1,200 W kits on two outlets.

What they mostly don’t do is override your lease. Colorado and New Jersey are the exceptions so far: Colorado stops HOAs and others from unreasonably banning systems, and New Jersey bars landlords, HOAs and condo associations from banning devices outright, though they can still set reasonable rules. Renters elsewhere still need permission to attach anything to the building.

UL 3700, the new safety standard

Before 2026, the best a US buyer could look for was a microinverter certified to UL 1741, the standard used for grid-tied inverters on rooftop systems. It covers the inverter’s grid behavior, including shutting off in a blackout, but it wasn’t written for a kit that plugs into an outlet.

UL 3700 was. UL Solutions launched a testing and certification program for it in January 2026, and the first microinverter certified to it, Hoymiles’ HiFlow Pro, was announced in July 2026. Complete kits have been slower to get through, and some listings cover only the microinverter rather than the whole system. When you shop, ask which part is certified and look the product up in UL’s own database rather than relying on a “UL compliant” line in an ad.

If your state has no law yet

In the other 40 states and Washington, DC, plug-in solar sits in a gray area. Kits are sold everywhere, but utilities generally treat anything that feeds power into your wiring as a generator that needs an interconnection agreement. Plugging one in without approval can break the terms of your service and, in the worst case, leave you liable if something goes wrong.

You have three reasonable options:

1. Ask your utility. Some will approve a small system through their standard solar process. It’s slower, but it’s legal.
2. Wait. Around half the states have introduced plug-in bills. New York’s legislature passed one in 2026 and it was awaiting the governor’s decision at the time of writing. Several other states are expected to try again in 2027.
3. Go off-grid instead. A portable power station charged by solar panels never connects to your home wiring, so no utility approval applies. It won’t cut your bill much, but it gives you backup power in an outage. See our guide to what a power station can run.

Before you buy a kit

Whatever your state, run through this list:

• Confirm your state’s law is actually in force on the day you plug in, not just signed.
• Check the size limit and buy a kit at or below it, measured as AC output from the inverter, not panel watts.
• Look up the certification yourself.
• Read your lease or HOA rules, and ask in writing if anything is unclear.
• Plug into a fixed outdoor outlet, never an extension cord.

Our guide to choosing a plug-in kit for an apartment goes through each step in more detail.