What Is the 30C Alternative Fuel Refueling Property Credit?

The Section 30C alternative fuel vehicle refueling property credit covers 30% of the cost of installing an EV charger or other qualifying refueling equipment, capped at $1,000 for a home installation and $100,000 per charging port for a business. Two conditions decide almost every claim: the equipment must be placed in service by June 30, 2026, and the installation address must sit in an eligible low-income or non-urban census tract.¹

The June 30, 2026 Deadline

The Inflation Reduction Act originally ran this credit through December 31, 2032. Public Law 119-21, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, pulled the termination date forward to June 30, 2026. No credit is available for property placed in service after that date.¹

“Placed in service” means installed, operational, and ready to use. Buying a charger in June and finishing the wiring in July does not qualify. Permitting, electrical work, and inspections routinely take weeks or months, so plan the whole project backward from June 30 with a cushion.

Does Your Address Qualify

Most disqualified claims fail here. Since January 1, 2023, the equipment must be installed in an eligible census tract, meaning either a low-income community tract or a non-urban tract. A low-income community is defined by reference to the New Markets Tax Credit under Section 45D, which looks at poverty rates and median family income against area benchmarks. A non-urban tract is any tract outside the boundaries of an urban area.²

For property placed in service after December 31, 2024, and before July 1, 2026, look for tracts labeled “2016–2020 NMTC tract” (low-income) or “2020 non-urban census tract.” The Argonne National Laboratory 30C Tax Credit Eligibility Locator will check an address directly. You can also pull your 11-digit census tract GEOID from the Census Bureau’s 2020 mapping tool and cross-reference Appendix B of IRS Notice 2024-20.

Check your address before you spend anything. If the location doesn’t qualify, no fuel type or equipment upgrade will fix it. One small piece of relief: property is not subject to recapture solely because a tract later loses its eligible designation after installation.³

What Equipment Counts

The credit applies to equipment that stores or dispenses alternative fuel into a vehicle or recharges an electric motor vehicle. Qualifying fuels include electricity, hydrogen, natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, ethanol blends of at least 85%, and biodiesel blends of at least 20%.⁴ For most homeowners this means a 240-volt Level 2 EV charger and the wiring and hardware to connect it.

Starting January 1, 2023, the definition expanded to include bidirectional charging equipment and charging stations for two- and three-wheeled electric vehicles used on public roads.⁵

A few baseline requirements apply regardless of fuel type. The equipment must be new: original use has to begin with you, so used or refurbished units don’t qualify.⁶ It must be used primarily in the United States. Business property must be depreciable. Personal-use property must be installed at your main home.

How Much the Credit Is Worth at Home

Homeowners installing qualifying equipment at a primary residence get 30% of the total cost, hardware plus installation, capped at $1,000 per single item of property.⁴ Roughly $3,334 in spending maxes out the credit on a single charger.

The IRS treats each charging port as its own item of property, so a dual-port unit can potentially support up to $2,000 in credits.⁵ Typical Level 2 residential installation runs roughly $800 to $3,700 for labor, wiring, and related hardware, before the charger itself. Utility rebates, where available, reduce your out-of-pocket cost but don’t directly reduce the Section 30C credit, since the credit is based on cost paid for the property.

How Much the Credit Is Worth for Businesses

Commercial installations run on a two-tier system. The base rate is 6% of the property’s cost, capped at $100,000 per charging port or fuel dispenser. That rate rises to 30% if the project meets prevailing wage and apprenticeship (PWA) requirements during construction.⁴

To earn the 30% rate, laborers and mechanics on the installation must be paid at least the prevailing wage set by the Department of Labor for that type of work in the geographic area, and the project must meet apprenticeship labor-hour ratios. Both apply to construction performed before the property is placed in service. Businesses claiming the increased rate must file a separate Form 7220 for each property.¹

Missing PWA requirements doesn’t automatically drop the project to 6%. A cure process allows businesses to pay back wages with interest plus a per-worker penalty for prevailing wage shortfalls, or a per-labor-hour penalty for apprenticeship shortfalls. Penalty amounts increase substantially when the IRS finds the failure was intentional.⁷

Because each port counts as a separate item, a business installing ten ports at $50,000 each could claim $15,000 per port at the 30% rate, or $150,000 total. That per-item treatment is what makes larger deployments viable.

Tax-Exempt and Government Entities: Direct Cash Payment

Nonprofits, state and local governments, tribal governments, school districts, and rural electric cooperatives don’t owe federal income tax, so a conventional credit does them no good. They can instead elect to receive the Section 30C credit as a direct cash payment from the IRS through “elective pay.”⁸

The process has three parts. Each property must be registered electronically with the IRS in advance to receive a unique registration number valid only for that tax year. The entity then files a return (Form 990-T if it doesn’t ordinarily file one) including Form 8911, Form 3800, and the registration number. The election must be on an original, timely filed return, including extensions; amended returns don’t count. Payments generally arrive within 45 days of the return’s due date. If tax-exempt grants or forgivable loans funded the equipment, the credit may be reduced so that combined benefits don’t exceed the property’s cost.⁸

How to Claim It

The credit is claimed on IRS Form 8911 (December 2025 revision for tax years beginning in 2025 or later). The form asks for the installation address, the property’s cost, and the credit calculation, and for tax years beginning after 2024 it also asks for the total number of qualifying properties on Item A. Businesses claiming the 30% rate file a separate Form 7220 for each property.¹

Before filling out the form, pull together:

Receipts for the charger hardware and separate invoices for installation labor
The date the property was placed in service
Your 11-digit census tract GEOID, confirmed through the Argonne locator or the Census Bureau’s mapping tool
The equipment’s serial number and manufacturer

Individuals attach Form 8911 to Form 1040. Corporations attach it to Form 1120. Partnerships and S corporations use the form to allocate the credit to their owners.¹

Personal Use: Non-Refundable, No Carryover

For individuals the credit is non-refundable. It can reduce your tax bill to zero but won’t generate a refund, and any unused portion is permanently lost. You cannot carry unused personal-use credit forward or back.¹ The personal credit also cannot exceed the difference between your regular tax liability (after other allowed credits) and your tentative minimum tax.⁵ If your tax bill is small the year you install the charger, some of the credit may go to waste.

Business Use: Carryback and Carryforward

The business portion flows to Form 3800 as part of the general business credit. If current-year tax liability is too low to absorb it, the credit can be carried back one year or forward up to 20 years.⁹

When You Might Have to Pay It Back

If the property stops qualifying within three full years after being placed in service, part of the credit can be recaptured, meaning added to taxable income in the year of the disqualifying event.⁵ Triggers include modifying the equipment so it no longer functions as qualifying refueling property, business use of depreciable property dropping below 50%, or selling to a buyer you know or should know will stop using it as qualifying refueling equipment.³

The amount owed back declines with each full year of service: recapture equals the original credit times a fraction of three minus the number of full years in service, divided by three. Recapture in year two means giving back two-thirds. A routine sale where you have no reason to think the buyer will stop using the equipment as intended is not a recapture event.³

1
Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 8911
2
Internal Revenue Service. Frequently Asked Questions Regarding Eligible Census Tracts for Purposes of the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit Under Section 30C
3
Federal Register. Section 30C Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 30C – Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit
5
Internal Revenue Service. Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit
6
Internal Revenue Service. Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit for Tax-exempt Entities
7
Internal Revenue Service. Frequently Asked Questions About the Prevailing Wage and Apprenticeship Under the Inflation Reduction Act
8
Internal Revenue Service. Elective Pay and Transferability Frequently Asked Questions: Elective Pay
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 39 – Carryback and Carryforward of Unused Credits