A feed-in tariff is what your electricity retailer pays you for solar power you send out to the grid instead of using at home.
It shows up on your bill as a credit. In New South Wales it is usually somewhere between two and eight cents for each unit you export.
Who decides what you get
In New South Wales, your retailer does.
The state's pricing regulator publishes a guide each year. For 2026-27 it suggests somewhere in the range of 3.4 to 6.5 cents. But it is only a guide. The regulator is blunt about this: retailers "may choose not to offer you a solar feed-in tariff or they may offer a higher or lower feed-in tariff."
So the range of real offers is wide. When the regulator checked in May, one retailer was offering nothing at all, several were offering half a cent, and the best was paying twelve.
Why it can't be much
It helps to see what you actually pay for electricity, and where that money goes.
The price on your bill is made of six parts stacked together. Roughly in order: the bulk cost of the power itself, the cost of the poles and wires that carry it, the environmental schemes, the retailer's own costs and profit, and GST.
Your feed-in tariff is the first slice only, and it's the smallest one.
That's the bit most people miss. When you export a unit, the retailer doesn't get a free unit to sell at full price. They still have to pay to move it down the street, and pay everything else stacked on top. So they pay you for the one part they genuinely save.
There's a second reason it stays low, and it comes down to company. What a unit of power is worth depends on how many other people are selling the same thing at the same moment. At lunchtime every solar roof in the street exports at once, so yours is one of millions, and power that everyone has going spare is worth very little.
Why a bigger number can cost you money
A high feed-in tariff is often attached to a plan that charges more for the electricity you buy.
Queensland's pricing authority found exactly that in July. One retailer's plans paying ten cents for exports worked out dearer overall than its own cheaper plans, which paid two.
Since almost every household buys far more power than it exports, the price you pay usually matters more than the price you're paid. The regulator's advice is to look at the whole plan: the daily charge, the unit price, the fees and the feed-in rate together, rather than one number on its own.
Could the rate simply be set higher?
People ask this, and the regulator has answered it.
If it forced the rate up, retailers would recover the cost by charging everyone more — including the households who cannot install solar because they rent or live in a flat. The people paying would be, on average, those who can least afford it.
You can disagree with that trade-off. But it is the reason the number is where it is, and it is worth knowing before deciding you're being short-changed.
Rates checked September 2026.