A new report finds that tax credits are becoming a standard component of corporate tax planning, with participation expanding across industries and company sizes. While policy uncertainty slowed transaction activity in late 2025, improving clarity in early 2026 is bringing buyers back into the market and reinforcing strong underlying demand.
The report, the inaugural 2025 Buyer Benchmarking Report, was commissioned by Crux, a capital platform for the clean economy.
“In just a few short years, the transferability of tax credits has become a core tool for how companies manage tax liability,” said Yonette Chung McLean, Chief Capital Officer of Crux. “Even amid policy uncertainty, our data shows that buyers didn’t exit the market; rather, they adapted in ways that allowed them to secure credits while maintaining flexibility around the timing of tax liability. As visibility into tax positions improves in 2026, we’re seeing strong re-engagement, increased competition, and clear signals of continued market strength and growth this year.”
Total tax credit monetization reached $63 billion in 2025, a 27% year-over-year increase, according to Crux’s 2025 year-end market intelligence report. For corporate buyers and tax equity investors, this represents a rapidly expanding market of opportunity: hundreds of billions of dollars of tax credits — generated by companies building clean energy, clean fuels, and removing carbon — are available to corporate buyers and tax equity investors through transfers or tax equity partnerships, providing an efficient way to reduce corporate tax liabilities.
Crux’s 2025 year-end buyer benchmarking report provides new visibility into how corporate buyers are approaching clean energy tax credits as both a financial and strategic tool.
Key takeaways include:
- Tax credits have become a standard and repeat tool for corporate tax strategy: More than 25% of Fortune 1000 companies were active as tax credit buyers or tax equity investors in 2025, with continued growth across industries and company sizes. Once companies enter the market, they tend to remain active buyers — about 80% of companies that participated in 2023 and 2024 also participated in 2025.
- Tax credit buyers are diverse in sector and corporate size: The two largest sectors investing in the tax credit market include financials (45% participation) and energy (34%), which typically have high US tax liabilities and familiarity working with tax credits and managing risk. Consumer staples (32%), materials (30%), consumer discretionary (28%), and industrials (24%) have also seen considerable increase in participation year-over-year.Large-cap companies lead the market (33%) due to sizable tax capacity and specialized teams to negotiate these deals, but mid-cap (29%) and small-cap (17%) participation grew as well.
- Policy uncertainty slowed transactions in late 2025, but clarity in early 2026 has brought buyers back off the sidelines: Following the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), many buyers paused spot purchases while reassessing tax liability. Recent guidance on corporate alternative minimum tax (CAMT) and R&D expensing has improved visibility into tax liability, with ~85% of surveyed buyers expecting to know their 2025 tax capacity by the end of Q1 2026.
- The tax credit market remains structurally strong, with competition and pricing expected to rise in 2026: Despite near-term disruption, buyer participation persisted through 2025 and is accelerating as tax forecasts stabilize. A diverse set of eligible technologies, combined with a robust pipeline of safe-harbored projects, supports a healthy forward market. As more buyers return, increased competition is expected to drive a rebound in tax credit pricing.
This report draws on proprietary transaction data, surveys of Crux’s active client base of buyers and investors, and public market disclosures. As the first report dedicated specifically to the demand side of the market, it complements Crux’s broader market intelligence research by offering a detailed view into buyer behavior, preferences, and forward-looking expectations.
To download the Crux 2025 Buyer Benchmarking Report, please visit www.cruxclimate.com/reports/2025-benchmarking-corporate-participation-tax-credit-market. To learn more about working with Crux, visit www.cruxclimate.com/contact.
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