No federal tax credit, a new binding appraisal right in Texas, the first Citizens rate cut since 2015, and material prices up about 5 percent, not the 25 percent you keep reading.
Hommy
July 18, 2026 · 11 min read
Four things actually changed for roofing this year: the last federal tax credit that touched roofs is gone, Texas homeowners got a new binding appraisal right on claim disputes, Florida saw its first Citizens rate cut since 2015, and material prices rose about 5 percent rather than the 25 percent circulating online. Here is the detail, and just as usefully, what did not change despite what you may have read.
There is no federal tax credit for your roof, and there has not been for years
This is the item most often reported wrong, including the direction of the error.
The One Big Beautiful Bill, signed in July 2025, ended two residential energy credits. The Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit, section 25C, is not allowed for property placed in service after December 31, 2025. The Residential Clean Energy Credit, section 25D, is not allowed for expenditures made after December 31, 2025.
The wording difference matters. For 25D the IRS treats an expenditure as made when the original installation is completed, so prepaying in December 2025 for a January 2026 solar install got you nothing.
Here is the correction almost nobody makes: a standard roof was already ineligible for 25C well before any of this. Metal roofs with pigmented coatings and asphalt roofs with cooling granules were removed from the credit starting in tax year 2023. So the accurate statement is not that the roof credit ended in 2026. It is that there has been no federal tax credit for an ordinary roof since 2022, and the solar-roof credit ended at the close of 2025.
If a contractor offers you a 2026 federal tax credit
There is not one for a roof. Treat the offer as a reason to check everything else they have told you. State and utility programs may still exist where you live, and those are worth asking about, but they are not the federal credit.
General information, not tax advice
Tax rules are specific to your situation and they change. This is general information, not tax, legal, or financial advice. Talk to a tax professional about your own circumstances.
Texas: you now have a binding appraisal right on claim amounts
Senate Bill 458 from the 2025 session created a new chapter of the Texas Insurance Code requiring an appraisal provision in personal auto and residential property policies. It applies to policies issued, delivered, or renewed in Texas on or after January 1, 2026, so most homeowners are hitting it at their first renewal this year.
What it gives you, in practical terms:
Either side can demand appraisal unilaterally. You do not need the insurer to agree, and you do not have to prove negotiations reached an impasse.
The award is binding on both parties, absent fraud, accident, or material mistake.
There are defined deadlines: 20 days for each side to name an appraiser, 120 days for the appraisers to agree, and 240 days to a final award.
The limit worth understanding: appraisal resolves disputes about the amount of loss, not about whether something is covered. If your carrier says the damage is not covered at all, appraisal is not the tool for that fight.
Two exclusions matter on the coast. The law does not apply to commercial policies, and it does not apply to policies issued by the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association. If your windstorm coverage comes through TWIA, this change does not reach it.
Florida: rates finally moved down, and the code did not change yet
Citizens Property Insurance recommended a statewide average decrease of about 2.6 percent for personal lines effective June 1, 2026. That is its first rate cut since 2015, and regulators went on to expand it. Three of five policyholders see a reduction averaging around 11.5 percent.
Behind that: Citizens shrank from a peak of roughly 1.42 million policies in late 2023 to a few hundred thousand, with over half a million policies moving to private carriers in 2025 alone, and 17 new insurers entered the state after the 2022 and 2023 reforms.
The Florida building code did not change this year
Florida is still on the 8th Edition of the Florida Building Code, which took effect at the end of 2023. The 9th Edition takes effect December 31, 2026. If you are permitting a roof in 2026, you are almost certainly still under the 8th Edition, and permits submitted before that date stay there.
So any article telling you Florida homeowners face new code requirements in 2026 is wrong for nearly all of the year. Worth knowing before a contractor uses it as a reason to sign now.
Several proposals get described online as though they were law. They are not:
SB 554 in 2025, which would have reinstated sliding-scale attorney fees and imposed estimate deadlines, died in committee.
HB 815 and SB 808 in 2026, which would have expanded roof-age non-renewal protections, died in subcommittee. The existing protection under Florida law is unchanged: a roof 15 years or older gets an inspection, and an insurer cannot refuse to write solely on age if the roof has five or more years of useful life left.
HB 527 in 2026, banning AI as the sole basis for a claim denial, passed the House unanimously but died in Senate Rules. It is not in force, despite contractor content that says otherwise.
Texas windstorm: no rate increase, lower funding target
TWIA filed for a zero percent rate change for 2026 at its board direction. Separately, 2025 legislation cut TWIA statutory funding standard from a 1-in-100-year storm to a 1-in-50-year storm, and the board set 4.3 billion dollars as the resulting probable maximum loss for the 2026 season.
For a coastal homeowner the near-term effect is a flat premium. The longer-term tradeoff is a smaller catastrophe fund, which is worth understanding rather than celebrating.
Materials cost about 5 percent more, not 25 percent
The producer price index for asphalt paving and roofing materials manufacturing rose roughly 5 percent year over year as of mid-2026. That is the defensible number, and it comes from federal data.
You will read a lot of content claiming roofing prices jumped 15 to 25 percent this year on tariffs. We could not substantiate those figures from any primary source. Manufacturer list-price announcements circulate widely on distributor blogs, but list prices routinely exceed what actually gets charged, and we found no manufacturer press release behind them.
Tariffs are real and did rise: Section 232 duties on steel and aluminum doubled to 50 percent in June 2025, and copper reached 50 percent in August 2025. Those touch metal roofing, fasteners, flashing, drip edge, and gutters. Asphalt shingles are petroleum and fiberglass products, so they are only indirectly exposed.
“When a contractor tells you to sign today because prices are about to jump 25 percent, the federal data says about 5. Urgency is a sales tactic more often than it is a fact.”
The genuine pressure on your project timeline is people, not materials. Construction trade groups report the industry needs to add hundreds of thousands of workers, and the overwhelming majority of firms say qualified workers are hard to find.
Roofing is more exposed than most trades because it relies heavily on foreign-born workers, and immigration enforcement activity through 2025 and 2026 has disrupted crews across the industry. Practically, expect scheduling to be the bottleneck, and expect a good contractor to have a real backlog. A roofer who can start tomorrow in the middle of storm season is telling you something.
Things people think changed but did not
ENERGY STAR for roofing. The roof products program was retired back in 2022, so no roofing product has carried that label for years. The 2025 news about the ENERGY STAR program overall does not change anything for roofs. The Cool Roof Rating Council remains the body that rates cool roofing.
Texas roofing licenses. There is still no statewide roofing contractor license in Texas. Certification programs exist and are voluntary. Local registration still applies in cities like Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio.
Texas building code. There is still no statewide residential building code. What is enforceable is whatever your city adopted, plus windstorm requirements on the coast.
Do not let anyone sell you on a federal tax credit for a roof. There is not one.
In Texas, if your carrier lowballs the amount of a roof loss, ask about appraisal at renewal. Check whether your policy is TWIA, because TWIA is excluded.
In Florida, shop your renewal. With new carriers entering and Citizens shrinking, the market is more competitive than it has been in years.
Treat price-increase urgency with skepticism. About 5 percent is the real number.
Book earlier than you think you need to. Labor, not material, is what will move your date.
