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Best SEG export tariffs 2026: who pays most for your solar
A straight comparison of every major UK Smart Export Guarantee tariff for 2026 — from Octopus Outgoing Fixed at 15p to Rebel at 2.5p. Who you can switch to without also switching imports, and how much that choice is worth per year.
If you had solar panels installed any time after January 2020, you’re on the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) rather than the old Feed-in Tariff. The SEG is a legal floor: every UK supplier with 150,000+ domestic customers has to offer something in exchange for the kWh you send to the grid. Most of them offer the legal minimum and hope you won’t notice.
In 2026, the gap between the best and worst common SEG rates is 14 pence per kWh. On a typical 4 kWp system exporting around 2,400 kWh/year, that’s the difference between earning £360 and earning £60. Same panels. Same roof. £300/year on the table depending on which piece of paper you signed.
The open-market table
These tariffs accept any UK export MPAN — you can stay with your current import supplier and switch only the export contract.
| Supplier | Tariff | Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Octopus Energy | Outgoing Fixed | 15p / kWh | Highest open-market flat rate. Monthly bill credit. |
| Octopus Energy | Outgoing Agile | ~12.8p avg | Half-hourly dynamic; better for south-facing roofs with strong midday export. |
| E.ON Next | Export (open) | 3p / kWh | E.ON’s open-market product is deliberately bad — see tied row below. |
| OVO | SEG Tariff | 4p / kWh | Flat, monthly credit. |
| Good Energy | Solar Export Premium | 5p / kWh | Green-supplier product, no catch. |
| Rebel Energy | Smart Export | 2.5p / kWh | Lowest common rate. Only pick this if simplicity matters more than £. |
Bottom line for most UK homes: Octopus Outgoing Fixed at 15p. No other open-market tariff comes close, you don’t need to switch imports, and it’s been held at 15p through all of 2024–26. If you’re on anything below 5p right now, you’re giving the supplier a free £100–£400 a year.
The import-tied table
These tariffs are higher-headline but require you to also buy your electricity from the same supplier. The maths only works if their import tariff is also competitive — do the bundle sum, not just the SEG sum.
| Supplier | Tariff | Rate | Tied to |
|---|---|---|---|
| E.ON Next | Next Export Exclusive | 16.5p / kWh | E.ON Next import tariff |
| ScottishPower | SmartGen+ | 12p / kWh | SP import |
| British Gas | Export & Earn Flex | 6.4p / kWh | BG import |
| EDF | Export+ | 5.6p / kWh | EDF import |
| SSE (via OVO) | Smart Export Tariff | 5.2p / kWh | SSE import |
E.ON’s 16.5p is the headline-grabber. It’s genuinely 1.5p/kWh higher than Octopus Outgoing. But if E.ON’s import unit rate is 1p/kWh higher than Octopus’s — which it can be depending on your region — a typical UK household with 2,700 kWh import will pay £27 more in imports than they earn in the export differential. The tied rate loses money.
Octopus gets it right far more often than not: competitive imports, the best open-market export, no gamesmanship. That’s why they now hold the majority of the UK SEG market.
How to actually switch
- Your export MPAN (the meter reference for what you send to the grid) can be with a different supplier from your import MPAN. This surprises people — but yes, it works, yes it’s fine, no you don’t need to tell your import supplier.
- Application usually takes 2–4 weeks.
- You need a SMETS2 smart meter or an export-capable MPAN. Most 2020+ installs have one; pre-2020 FiT homes may not.
- Expect quarterly or monthly payments by BACS or bill credit. Keep an eye on the first payment to confirm the export readings are being taken.
Pick the right number for your roof
If you want to see exactly what each tariff would pay your specific export profile, our SEG tariff comparator ranks all 12 tariffs side by side and flags which are import-tied. Enter your annual export kWh (from your SEG meter or inverter app) and it does the sums.
If you don’t have solar yet and you’re trying to work out whether it pays for itself at today’s rates, start with the solar payback calculator instead.
We refresh the SEG table quarterly, usually when Ofgem resets the price cap — that’s the cap impact calculator if you want to see what each quarterly change does to your import side.