Regulations – I feed electricity into the public grid: do I have to pay tax on the proceeds?

If a private person sells electricity from their PV system to an energy supply company, i.e. “feeds” the electricity into the public grid, the proceeds from this generally represent operating income which, after deducting operating expenses pro rata, is taxed as income from a business, like Tax advisor Stefan Ziak Explained by auditing and tax advisory firm Rabel & Partner. If someone has income subject to wage tax, an assessment allowance of €730 applies.

12500 kWh personal allowance

In order to reduce the administrative burden on individuals and encourage the expansion of renewable energy, the Tax Amendment Act of 2022 introduced a tax exemption for the income of natural persons from feeding electrical energy from photovoltaic systems.

Zayaq: “From the 2022 estimate, income from feeding up to 12,500 kilowatt-hours per year is exempt from income tax if the bottleneck output of the system in question does not exceed the peak limit of 25 kilowatts.” 12,500 kWh represents a personal tax exemption, and the amount sold in excess of that is subject to tax. And the expert emphasizes that “if the taxpayer is subscribed to several systems, he is only entitled to an exemption once for all systems that do not exceed the 25 kW limit.”

calculated once

Let’s look at this with an example: Suppose Mr. Sonnenklar installs a 16 kW photovoltaic system in his private home. Now he has a PV system with 12 kW installed in his second home. In total, about 13,500 kWh will be fed into the public grid in 2023. Mr. Sonnenklar is entitled to an exemption for both systems, as they do not exceed the 25-kWh limit. However, because the total amount of electricity sold exceeds the personal allowance, income from the excess 1,000 kWh fed into the grid is taxable.