Cancel a Solar Contract Before Installation: Deadlines, Notices, and What Happens Next

How do you cancel a solar contract before installation?

To cancel a solar contract before installation, send a signed, dated written notice before your deadline, by the method your contract and the law require, and send a copy to the lender the same day. For a sale made at your home, the FTC’s Cooling-Off Rule generally gives you until midnight of the third business day after the sale, Saturdays included, and some states give longer. Your contract may allow cancellation later than either, so read its cancellation section today.

Cancellation is never automatic. Each deadline below depends on the type of contract, the date you signed, your state and how the notice is delivered. If the panels are already on your roof, read canceling after installation.

Which deadline applies to you?

Three sources can give you a right to cancel: the federal rule, your state’s law and your contract. Check all three.

The federal Cooling-Off Rule

The Cooling-Off Rule (16 CFR Part 429) covers “a sale, lease, or rental of consumer goods or services” that a seller personally solicits and that you agree to somewhere other than the seller’s place of business, for $25 or more when the sale is made at your home. It includes a presentation you invited. It generally covers a solar sale made at your home, though no agency has ruled on every solar sale: the CFPB says door-to-door solar contracts “may be subject to” it, and no agency has addressed PPAs. Treasury’s guide for solar buyers says: “The right to cancel the transaction lasts for at least three days from the date it is signed.”

The rule’s exclusions include sales that carry a federal Truth in Lending right of rescission, sales that follow negotiations at the seller’s permanent store, buyer-initiated emergencies, sales made entirely by mail or phone, and repair visits you asked for.

For a covered sale, the contract must say, in bold type next to your signature: “You, the buyer, may cancel this transaction at any time prior to midnight of the third business day after the date of this transaction.” The seller must also give you two copies of a Notice of Cancellation form with the deadline date filled in. Look at that date, then check it against the counting rules below.

Your state’s law

State laws stay in force alongside the federal rule, and the FTC notes that some state laws “give you more rights than the FTC’s Cooling-Off Rule.” Windows vary by state and can be longer than three days. Confirmed examples:

• Texas: five business days for residential solar purchases and leases signed on or after September 1, 2025. The agreement must state the last calendar date and a mailing or email address for the notice (Occ. Code 1806.156).
• Georgia: 30 business days for in-person deals with payments of $10,000 or more, a term over 120 months, and eligibility for federal tax credits, actual or claimed by the seller (O.C.G.A. 10-1-20 to 10-1-27).
• South Carolina: 10 calendar days after you sign a solar sale or lease agreement (S.C. Code Regs. 28-78(D)).
• Nevada: 10 business days for buyers, lessees and host customers 60 or older, for agreements on or after October 1, 2025 (SB 379).
• Virginia: five business days for solar sale, lease and power purchase contracts, starting January 1, 2027 (2026 Acts chapters 851 and 852).

For every other state, see the state-by-state table and the cancellation deadline tool. California’s SB 784, which would lengthen that state’s periods, is a bill: the Assembly Appropriations Committee held it in committee on August 13, 2026.

Your contract

Read your contract’s cancellation section for any right to cancel before a project step such as permitting or a notice to proceed, and for any charge that comes with it. Treasury tells buyers to ask before signing: “Can I cancel the contract early? Are there prepayment or early termination fees or other charges?”

State rules can also tie a right to cancel to the permit. South Carolina’s solar regulation, for example, makes the agreement’s enforceability “contingent upon issuance of a building permit” and any homeowners association approval; if either is denied, the customer may cancel within seven calendar days of the notice “upon payment of reasonable cancellation costs or fees,” or agree to amend the deal.

How do you count the days?

Under the federal rule, a business day is any calendar day except Sunday or a federal holiday (16 CFR 429.0(f)). Saturdays count. The day you sign does not; the window closes at midnight of the third business day after it. The FTC’s examples, assuming no holidays except where noted:

You signed on	Federal deadline (midnight)
Monday	Thursday
Friday	Tuesday
Friday, with a federal holiday on Monday	Wednesday

Federal holidays include Juneteenth on June 19, added in 2021. Don’t skip Saturdays in the federal count; the rule’s own definition includes them.

State counts differ. Texas’s solar law defines a business day as a calendar day excluding Saturday, Sunday and legal holidays, so with no holidays a Friday signing runs through the following Friday. Georgia’s act also leaves out Saturdays. South Carolina counts calendar days. If you can’t tell which rule applies, send the notice before the earliest deadline that might.

For mailed notices under the federal rule, the FTC says to “make sure the envelope is postmarked before midnight of the third business day after the contract date.” State laws and contracts may handle mail differently, which is another reason not to wait for the last day.

How do you send the cancellation notice?

Use the form if you have it. The FTC says to sign and date one copy of the Notice of Cancellation and mail it to the address given for cancellations. If the seller didn’t give you the form, write a letter; the rule accepts “any other written notice.” You don’t have to give a reason.

Say it plainly. Include your name and address, the seller’s name, the contract date and any contract or account number, and the form’s own sentence: “I HEREBY CANCEL THIS TRANSACTION.” Sign and date it. If the contract names an email address for notices, use it as well; Texas contracts must give a mailing or email address.

Prove delivery. The FTC recommends certified mail with a return receipt, which shows when you mailed it and when it arrived. Keep a copy of everything you send. A phone call to the sales team leaves no record and doesn’t stop the clock.

Copy the lender the same day. The CFPB says installers and lenders “may work in concert,” with loan offers made on the salesperson’s tablet alongside the installation contract. The lender is often a separate company, so send it the same notice directly. If the seller itself extended the credit, the rule bars it from selling your note to a finance company before midnight of the fifth business day after you signed.

Don’t sign anything new while the window is open. Treasury’s warning about the sale applies here too: “Be careful when you sign anything on the seller’s computer or tablet.”

What must the seller do after you cancel?

Under 16 CFR 429.1(g), within 10 business days after it receives a valid notice, the seller must:

• refund all payments made under the contract;
• return any goods or property you traded in;
• cancel and return any negotiable instrument you signed, and “take any action necessary or appropriate to terminate promptly any security interest created in the transaction.”

In the same 10 business days it must tell you whether it will pick up or abandon any goods it delivered. If panels were dropped off before installation, make them available; under the rule’s notice form, if the seller doesn’t collect them within 20 days of your notice, you may keep or dispose of them with no further obligation.

If a UCC financing statement was already filed on the equipment, ask the secured party in writing to file a termination statement. For consumer goods, UCC 9-513 requires one within one month after nothing is owed, or within 20 days after it receives a signed, written demand from you, whichever is earlier. In Texas, the sale or lease agreement must require an affiliated or referred lender to cancel the accompanying loan when you cancel under the state’s five-day right (Occ. Code 1806.155(c)).

If the refund or the release doesn’t come, the FTC says to report the seller to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, your state attorney general and your local consumer protection agency.

What if your window has closed but nothing is installed?

Work in this order.

1. Check the contract and your state again. A contract right tied to permitting or a notice to proceed, or a longer state window, may still be open.
2. Identify your contract and every company. Note whether you have a cash purchase, loan, lease, PPA or PACE, and who the installer, lender, servicer and warranty provider are.
3. Ask in writing, and complain for free. The FTC’s advice: “If you have a problem with a system you bought, try to resolve it with the company first.” If you’re not satisfied, the FTC says to report it at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and to your state attorney general. The CFPB’s complaint page asks, “Have you tried reaching out to the company?” For leases and PPAs, Treasury, the CFPB and the FTC jointly urge consumers to file with the CFPB, the FTC or their state consumer protection office. Add your state contractor licensing board if your installer is licensed there.

Disclosure: Candid Yak works with Titan Advocacy Group, a solar consumer advocacy firm, and may be paid when readers hire it.

4. If they refuse, and your documents show a gap between what you were told and what you signed, get a free case review from an attorney-backed firm. Choose one that reads your papers before quoting any fee and tells you plainly if a free route is still open, names an attorney licensed in your state whom you can look up with the state bar, and puts its fee, and what happens to it if the lender refuses, in writing. It should never tell you to stop paying, never promise a result, and never claim ties to your installer or lender.
5. Other routes. A cancellation on the contract’s own terms, which may carry a fee, or for a lease or PPA the contract’s early termination terms. See solar contract cancellation fees.

The full sequence is in how to get out of a solar contract, and solar cancellation companies covers how to vet a firm.

Disclosure: Candid Yak works with Titan Advocacy Group, a solar consumer advocacy firm, and may be paid when readers hire it. This page’s author, Kira Fairbank, is a manager at Vacation Ownership Consultants, a timeshare exit firm.

This is general information, not legal advice. Your deadline turns on your state’s statute, the date filled in on your cancellation form and the method your contract names. If there is any doubt about the deadline, send the notice now, then put the contract in front of an attorney licensed in your state before you sign a release or change any payment.