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The Haitian state is giving up the collection of 200 million gourdes in taxes, duties, and levies on solar panels, batteries, and inverters as part of the energy transition.
The Haitian state is foregoing the collection of 200 million gourdes in taxes, duties, and fees on solar panels, batteries, and inverters as part of the energy transition. The decision, already announced by Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé during the celebration of World Environment Day, will be formalized in the 2025‑2026 amended budget, which is to be published imminently by Le Moniteur, said the Minister of Economy and Finance, Serge Collin, in an interview with Le Nouvelliste on Saturday, June 6, 2026.”Fossil energy costs more and more on a global scale year after year. Consequently, all countries must begin the energy transition to reduce, on the one hand, the carbon bill and its negative impact on the environment, and on the other hand, control the expenses associated with the consumption of fossil energies,” he continued, emphasizing that this measure — the energy transition — had been announced at the time of the upward revision of petroleum product prices at the pump.”National production will benefit from such an approach. This will allow all companies and industries established in Haiti to reduce energy expenses 24/7. At the Caracol industrial park, as we speak, the installation of a solar power plant is being finalized. This will allow the industrial park to operate using solar energy. The cost of producing a kilowatt-hour will drop from 30 cents to 13 cents. That’s something. It will be the same for households that have a generator. If they have the possibility to acquire everything related to solar energy production, they will save in the medium and long term,” he explained at length.”Specifically, from this decision onwards, everything related to solar — panels, batteries, inverters — will not pay any tax, duty, or levy. Entrepreneurs will sell these products at cost price, plus their margin. The logic would suggest that if, yesterday, they were paying customs duties, VAT, and everything that falls under taxes, duties, and levies, today that will no longer be the case. Automatically, the prices of these products should decrease in the domestic market,” explained the minister, who announced the upcoming publication by the Directorate of Economic Studies of his ministry of a report on the average costs of these products.
The Dominican Republic has already begun the energy transition. Products are more affordable there. That is why many solar panels are smuggled across the border, detailed Serge Collin, who sees in this measure by the Haitian government an opportunity for local businesses to sell at attractive prices to the national clientele.Actions in the name of the energy transition are not new in Haiti. In August 2017, President Jovenel Moïse had repeatedly emphasized that his administration “will change the country’s energy matrix.” He had expressed a preference for natural gas, wind, and solar energy. The 2017-2018 finance bill already gave indications of the desire to move from words to actions.Article 24 of the draft finance bill introduced amendments, proposing a 0% customs duty rate on goods such as parts of solar pumps, household-type refrigerators, parts of solar refrigerators, wind energy generators, solar generators, photovoltaic converters, solar batteries, portable solar lamps, solar water heaters, solar panels (photovoltaic devices), and solar lighting devices.The measure had been welcomed. But, as in 2017, it is through the finance law — which spans 12 months — that these fiscal measures are adopted. They suffer from a lack of sustainability and continuity, because they do not necessarily fit into an energy policy supported by laws.
