The Smart Export Guarantee pays you for solar electricity you send back to the grid. Rates range from about 3p to 16p per kWh depending on your supplier and what conditions you meet, and that spread matters more to whether solar pays than the price you negotiated for the panels.
This page does not contain a table of supplier rates. That is deliberate, and the reason is the most useful thing we can tell you about export tariffs.
Why we are not giving you a rate table
We looked at nine current UK guides comparing Smart Export Guarantee rates, all published or updated in 2026, all presenting themselves as up to date. Here is what they say about the same suppliers.
| Supplier | Rates quoted across those nine guides |
|---|---|
| Octopus, fixed | 4.1p, 12p, 15p, 27p |
| British Gas | 3.0p, 5.1p, 6.4p, 12p, 15.1p |
| EDF | 3.0p, 5.6p, 15p, 16p |
| E.ON | 3.5p, 16.5p |
| OVO | 4p, 15p |
British Gas appears as both 3p and 15.1p. EDF as both 3p and 16p. These are not rounding differences. They differ by a factor of five, and a household choosing on the strength of the wrong one would plan around an income five times off.
So a table of rates on this page would be a table you could not rely on, and we would have no way of telling you which rows to trust. Instead, this page explains why the tables disagree, which is knowledge that stays useful after every rate changes.
Why the tables disagree
Four reasons, and they compound.
There is no price cap on export. Ofgem caps what you pay for electricity. It does not cap what suppliers pay you for it. Each supplier sets its own export rate and can change it when it likes. There is no equivalent of the quarterly cap announcement to anchor everyone to the same figure.
Rates change without notice and guides do not. Octopus reportedly cut its Outgoing Fixed rate from 15p to 12p on 1 March 2026. A guide written in February and never revisited still says 15p, and looks current because the page carries a 2026 date.
Restricted tariffs get quoted as though anyone can have them. This is the big one. Several of the headline rates you will see are conditional:
- Some require you to buy your electricity from the same supplier
- Some require that supplier to have done your installation
- Some require a specific brand of battery
- Some are closed to new customers but still listed
A guide that prints the number without the condition is not lying, but it is describing a rate most readers cannot get.
Fixed and variable rates get mixed together. A time-of-use tariff paying 25p or more during a peak evening window is not comparable with a flat rate paid on every unit. Quoting the peak figure as the headline is common and misleading unless you have a battery and can time your exports.
What you can rely on
Three things that are stable, and worth more than any rate table.
The obligation is real. Licensed suppliers above a certain size must offer an export tariff to eligible small-scale generators. You are entitled to be paid for what you export. What you are not entitled to is a good price.
Export is worth considerably less than self-consumption. Under the Ofgem price cap for 1 October to 31 December 2026, importing electricity costs around 26.32p per kWh. Almost every export rate is well below that. A unit you use yourself is worth 26p; the same unit exported might be worth 4p or 15p. That gap is why what you do with your generation matters more than what you are paid for the surplus.
You can choose your export supplier separately from your import supplier. They do not have to be the same company, although some of the better rates are conditional on them being the same company. Switching export tariff is free and does not affect who supplies your electricity.
How to find out what you would actually get
This takes about fifteen minutes and gives you a figure you can trust, which no comparison page can.
- Start with your current supplier. Go to their site and find their export tariff page. Note the rate and, crucially, the conditions.
- Check two or three others. Go to the supplier’s own site rather than a comparison page. The supplier’s page is the only authority on the supplier’s rate.
- For each rate, write down what it requires. Do you need to import from them? Did they need to install your system? Do you need a battery, or a particular brand of battery? A rate with conditions you cannot meet is not a rate available to you.
- Separate fixed from variable. If a tariff quotes a range, ask what the average is across a year, not what the peak is.
- Note the date you checked, and check again before you commit.
Do this before your installation rather than after. Some of the highest rates require the supplier to have carried out the installation, which is a decision you can only make once.
What the export rate is worth in practice
A worked example, using our own arithmetic rather than anyone’s marketing.
A 4kW system in the UK generates roughly 2,900 to 3,800 kWh a year, depending on location, orientation and shading. The lower end reflects northern Britain, the upper end southern England on a south-facing roof. Households typically use somewhere between a third and two thirds of that directly, exporting the rest.
Take a household exporting 1,500 kWh a year:
| Export rate | Annual income | Over 25 years |
|---|---|---|
| 4p per kWh | £60 | £1,500 |
| 8p per kWh | £120 | £3,000 |
| 12p per kWh | £180 | £4,500 |
| 16p per kWh | £240 | £6,000 |
Our calculation, assuming a flat rate and no change over the period, which is unrealistic but makes the comparison clear.
The difference between the bottom and top rows is £4,500 over the life of the panels, which is more than half the installed cost of a 4kW system. Choosing your export tariff carefully is worth more than negotiating hard on the quote.
Two cautions on that table. Rates will change repeatedly over 25 years, in both directions, so treat it as illustrating the scale of the difference rather than predicting anyone’s income. And the figures assume you export 1,500 kWh, which depends entirely on your own consumption pattern.
What you need to qualify
- An MCS-certified installation. Your installer issues the certificate on commissioning and you need the installation number to apply. This is one of several reasons to use a certified installer.
- A smart meter capable of recording half-hourly export readings. Without one, your supplier cannot measure what you sent them. If you have an older meter, ask about an upgrade before installation rather than after.
- A system within the eligible capacity limits, which are far above anything a household would install.
The application itself is short, and payment is usually made as credit against your electricity account or directly to your bank, depending on the supplier.
The one decision that matters more
Export rates are worth getting right, but they are the second most important variable. The first is how much of your own generation you use rather than export, because a unit used is worth 26p and a unit exported is worth a fraction of that.
Shifting consumption into daylight hours, running the dishwasher, washing machine and any immersion heater while the sun is up, is free and raises self-consumption more than most people expect. That is also the argument for a battery, and whether a battery earns its cost is a separate question we look at on its own.
For what a system costs in the first place, see what solar panels actually cost, built on official installation data rather than quotes, and how those costs vary by region. To put your own numbers together, including the export rate you have found, the solar payback calculator works it out for your roof, and whether solar is worth it covers the cases where it does not pay.
Frequently asked questions
These come up most often once people start looking at export tariffs.
What is the best Smart Export Guarantee rate?
We are not going to name one, because published comparisons contradict each other by a factor of five and rates change without notice. The realistic range is roughly 3p to 16p per kWh. Check the supplier’s own website rather than a comparison page, and check what conditions the headline rate carries.
Why do different websites quote completely different SEG rates?
Because there is no cap on export rates, suppliers change them without notice, restricted tariffs get quoted as though they were open to everyone, and peak time-of-use rates get compared against flat rates. All four happen routinely.
Can I use a different supplier for export and import?
Yes. Your export tariff does not have to be with your electricity supplier, and switching is free. Some of the better rates are conditional on both being the same company, which is a trade-off worth working out before you commit.
Is the export rate more important than the price I pay for the system?
It can be. The difference between a 4p and a 16p tariff on a typical export volume is in the region of £4,500 over the life of the panels, which is more than half what a 4kW system costs to install.
Do I need a smart meter for the Smart Export Guarantee?
Yes. Your supplier needs half-hourly export readings, which requires a smart meter. If yours is an older model, ask about an upgrade before your installation rather than afterwards.
Is the Smart Export Guarantee the same as the Feed-in Tariff?
No. The Feed-in Tariff closed to new applicants and paid a government-set rate for both generation and export. The Smart Export Guarantee pays only for what you export, and each supplier sets its own rate, which is why they vary so much.
Last updated 15 October 2026. Import electricity prices from the Ofgem price cap for 1 October to 31 December 2026. Export rates are not capped or centrally published, so we have deliberately not published a supplier rate table; the ranges quoted are drawn from a review of nine commercial comparison guides published in 2026, whose figures contradict one another, and are given to illustrate that spread rather than to state any supplier’s current rate. Annual generation and export volumes, and the income table, are our own illustrative calculations. Annual generation ranges follow the MCS MIS 3002 methodology and published Kk values. Check current rates with suppliers directly. Written by Ben Jardine.