Solar Feed-in Tariffs Australia October 2026: Every Retailer Plan by State, Checked 27 October 2026

What a feed-in tariff is and who sets it now

A feed-in tariff is the credit, in cents per kilowatt hour, that an electricity retailer pays for the solar electricity a home exports to the grid. The retailer sets it in each plan it publishes; in six of the states and territories in this data there is no government minimum at all. The two exceptions are regional Queensland, where the Queensland Competition Authority sets the Ergon Energy rate at 6.006c for 2026-27, and Tasmania, where the Tasmanian Economic Regulator sets a minimum of 9.276c. Victoria dropped its minimum on 1 July 2025, and New South Wales publishes a benchmark range that is a guide rather than a floor.

The old government schemes that paid 44c or more, such as the Queensland Solar Bonus Scheme, are closed to new customers. They still appear in 1,602 plan records with payer type GOVERNMENT, and every one of those rates is excluded from the figures on these pages, which count only what the retailer pays.

The data covers 10,150 residential electricity plans with a feed-in tariff from 35 retailer brands in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, the ACT and Tasmania. Western Australia and the Northern Territory are not in it: Synergy, Horizon Power and Jacana Energy are regulated single retailers whose plans do not appear in the CDR product data we read, so no WA or NT figure is printed anywhere on these pages.

Feed-in tariffs by state, October 2026

The median is the middle plan's best retailer-paid rate across every plan in the state, conditional or not. The best unconditional offer is the highest rate that needs no battery, VPP membership, bundle, cap or other condition, with the hours it applies if it is a time window. The best conditional offer is labelled with its condition. Plan names and rates are as published in each retailer's CDR record on 27 October 2026.

Tasmania's median of 10.87c is the highest because the regulated minimum sits under every plan. The New South Wales median of 3c comes from 4,338 plans, the largest market in the data. The 25c Ezi Power rate that heads four states is unconditional but applies only in an afternoon and evening window; outside it the plan pays 2c.

Regulated rates and benchmarks

Only two jurisdictions in the data still regulate the number, and they regulate different things: Queensland fixes the rate that one regional retailer pays, Tasmania fixes a floor under every retailer. Everything else is the retailer's choice.

What 1c of feed-in tariff is worth

A 6.6 kW system in Sydney makes about 9,398 kWh a year (1,424 kWh per kW from the Clean Energy Council yield table for Sydney, multiplied by 6.6). At 35 per cent self-consumption, the share used in every saving figure on this site, that share is used in the house and 6,109 kWh is exported. Each 1c of feed-in tariff on those exports is worth 6,109 kWh x 1c = $61.09, about $61 a year. The gap between the New South Wales median of 3c and the 5.5c that CovaU pays unconditionally at all hours, the highest such rate in the state, is therefore about $153 a year on this profile, and the gap between 3c and 0c is $183.

A "peak window" rate changes the arithmetic. A 10c rate that applies only from 5pm to 9pm pays 10c on the exports that fall in those hours and the plan's other rate, often 0c, on the rest. A fixed rooftop array exports most of its energy between late morning and mid afternoon, so the evening share is small. If 10 per cent of the 6,109 kWh fell in the window (611 kWh, an assumption stated here rather than measured), the 10c window would be worth $61 a year, the same as 1c paid all day. A west-facing array or a battery that discharges to the grid in the evening moves more export into the window, which is the point of these plans.

Why a higher feed-in tariff often comes with a higher usage rate

A retailer that pays more for exports recovers it somewhere, and the usual place is the usage rate or the supply charge on the same plan. The CDR records let you see both lines side by side, which the feed-in headline alone does not. Two Ausgrid (Sydney) plans from 27 October 2026 show the pattern: AGL's Residential Three for Free pays 15c between 17:00 and 20:59 and 0c at other times, with a peak usage rate of 57.92c; Alinta Energy's HomeDeal Smart pays 3c all day with a single usage rate of 24.03c. Every kWh imported at AGL's peak rate costs 33.89c more than on the Alinta plan, so the household would need to export 2.26 kWh inside the AGL window for every 1 kWh it imports at peak just to break even.

On these assumptions the Alinta plan finishes $1,512 a year ahead even though its feed-in tariff is 12c lower. The assumptions matter and are only an illustration: AGL's plan also has a 0c shoulder rate from 11:00 to 13:59 and a 25.05c off-peak rate, which a household that runs its load in the middle of the day would use, and Alinta's plan carries a demand charge that is not in the table. The lesson is the method, not the winner: price the exports at the rate and hours that apply, price the imports at the rate and hours that apply, add the supply charge, and compare the totals. The payback calculator does this with your own figures.

State pages and retailer pages

Each state page lists every retailer's best plan, the best unconditional plan per retailer, the per-distributor medians and what the median and the best rate are worth on a 6.6 kW system in the capital. Each retailer page lists that brand's best plan in every state and distribution zone with the usage rate, supply charge and the date the retailer last updated the record. Retailer pages exist for the 29 brands with at least 20 residential plans carrying a feed-in tariff.

Before you compare offers, the solar panel cost page has this month's installed prices and the payback calculator lets you set your own feed-in tariff, usage rate and self-consumption share.

Feed-in tariff questions