Abstract-Leakage current reduction is one of the important issues for the transformelress PV systems. In this paper, the transformerless single-phase cascaded H-bridge PV inverter is investigated. The common mode model for the cascaded H4 inverter is analyzed. And the reason why the conventional cascade H4 inverter fails to reduce the leakage current is clarified. In order to solve the problem, a new cascaded H5 inverter is proposed to solve the leakage current issue. Finally, the experimental results are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed topology with the leakage current reduction for the singlephase transformerless PV systems.