Tennessee's Multifamily EV Charging Rebate Is Going Fast

In September, Tennessee launched a rebate program that pays apartment properties back for putting in Level 2 EV chargers.

The state put $650,000 into it, from the Volkswagen diesel settlement, and gives funds out first come, first served until it's gone.

A good chunk of it is already spoken for.

If you own or run apartments in Tennessee, it's worth your attention.

What the rebate pays

Tennessee pays 60 percent of what your project costs, up to a limit for each charging port. Their paperwork calls a port a plug, so you'll see that word on the forms. How high the limit goes depends on the property:

• Up to $10,000 per port if your property counts as low-income housing or sits in an area the CDC flags as carrying a heavy environmental and economic load.

• Up to $6,000 per port everywhere else.

There's a max of 10 plugs at one property and a minimum of two.

Who's eligible

Owners, property managers, HOAs, and anyone leasing a property who has permission to do the work. The property must be in Tennessee and have at least four units. The chargers must be open to your residents all day, every day of the year, and they can't be open to the public.

The 90-day clock is the part to watch

Most people will read the reservation step as paperwork. It's actually a deadline.

Before you start building, you send Tennessee a short form asking them to hold money for your project. They check it and send back a letter saying how much money they're setting aside for you. That letter gives you 90 days. In those 90 days you must finish the whole job and turn in your paperwork.

90 days is not much time for an EV charging job. A normal one takes anywhere from one to four months once you add up the design work, the permit office, and the utility company. If you lock in the money first and then go looking for someone to build it, you've already burned part of your 90 days.

Do it the other way around. Find out what your property can handle, get a real price, line up who's doing the work, and then ask for the money.

The rebate covers more than the chargers

Tennessee pays for more than many programs do. On top of the chargers and the work to install them, they'll also pay for digging trenches and running conduit, the design work, checking whether the site will even work, and some upfront costs like network fees, bollards, and wheel stops.

That matters, because the digging and the wiring is usually the expensive part nobody sees, and many programs won't cover it.

The money is already going

Tennessee posts a running balance on the program page, but they don't update it often. Whatever number you see there, some of it is already promised to projects in the works, and the page itself may be weeks behind.

It's one pot of money, it's first come, and nobody has said there will be a second round.

This kind of program matters more than it did a year ago. The federal tax credit for charging equipment ended on June 30, 2026. It only counted if your chargers were finished and working by that date, so anything that wrapped up later gets nothing from it. State and utility programs are most of what's left.

If you own property in Tennessee

REVS can file the rebate for you. The reservation request, the supplier registration with the state, the receipts, the photos, the final application, all of it. You don’t chase paperwork and you don’t watch the clock. That’s our job.

Start by finding out what your property can actually handle, because that sets your real cost and your real rebate. An EV charging due diligence report tells you that before you commit to anything or start a clock running.

Our multifamily EV charging page walks through how these jobs come together. If you want help working out whether your Tennessee properties qualify, contact REVS and we'll take a look.