Heat Pump Rebates in Canada: Are They Worth It, and How Do You Apply?

As of July 2026, the federal Canada Greener Homes Grant is closed (December 31, 2025 was the last day to submit documents) — a lot of contractor sites still list it as active, so don't rely on those. The federal program currently open is the Oil to Heat Pump Affordability Program (OHPA) for income-qualified households switching off oil heat, worth up to $10,000 upfront where NRCan delivers it directly and up to $25,000 in grants or direct installation plus a $250 incentive in co-delivered provinces — but it requires pre-approval before work starts and has a hard July 31, 2026 application deadline in five provinces. Its income-qualified successor, the Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program, fully covers recommended retrofits through provincial delivery partners. Ontario's Home Renovation Savings Program offers up to $12,000 for a heat pump with no home energy assessment required. Apply before you buy, and confirm current status directly with the program — this page tells you which programs to check and why timing matters.

The short answer

Rebates can meaningfully offset the cost of switching to a heat pump, but the landscape is fragmented across federal, provincial, and utility programs that change on their own schedules — the federal Grant that anchored most 2024–2025 coverage of this topic is now closed. The honest starting point: don’t buy a heat pump because a rebate makes the math work — buy it because the operating-cost case works, and treat whichever rebate is currently open as a bonus you confirm before signing a contract, not after.

The Canada Greener Homes Grant is closed — a lot of pages online still say otherwise

The federal Canada Greener Homes Grant closed — December 31, 2025 was the last day to submit documents. If you’re reading a contractor’s website, a rebate-aggregator page, or older coverage of this topic that lists the Grant as an active program you can apply to, that information is stale — not a live option. (A January 20, 2026 closure date circulates on some sites; that date actually belongs to Canada Greener Affordable Housing, a separate community-housing program — don’t conflate the two.) Its income-qualified successor is the Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program (CGHAP), described below. The Canada Greener Homes Loan is also closed — no further applications are being approved, though already-approved loans are unaffected.

What’s actually open right now (as of July 2026)

Program status and amounts verified against official program pages (NRCan, saveonenergy.ca/homerenovationsavings.ca), July 2026. Reviewed quarterly.

The Oil to Heat Pump Affordability Program, in more detail

OHPA is the federal program most worth acting on right now if you’re eligible. It targets households currently heating with oil — specifically homes that purchased 500 litres or more of heating oil in the prior 12 months — with household income at or below the median after-tax income, and the home must be connected to an integrated electricity grid (Nunavut and other remote, non-grid-connected areas are ineligible).

It’s worth up to $10,000 upfront, paid by cheque after approval, where NRCan delivers the program directly, and up to $25,000 in grants or direct installation plus a $250 one-time incentive in provinces that co-deliver the program alongside their own funding. It covers the heat pump itself, necessary electrical or mechanical upgrades, oil tank removal, supplemental electric heating where required, and switching other oil-using systems in the home, such as a water heater. A home energy evaluation may not be required, and OHPA funding can be combined with other federal, provincial, territorial, and utility programs.

Pre-approval is required before any installation work starts — this is not a program you can apply to after the fact. In Alberta, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, Quebec, and Saskatchewan specifically (where the program is federally delivered rather than co-delivered with a province), July 31, 2026 is the last day to apply, all supporting documents are due by January 31, 2027, and the program closes entirely on March 31, 2027. Ontario residents apply through their provincial delivery partner, not the federal portal, on a separate timeline — check directly rather than assuming the federal deadline applies to you. If you’re in one of the five federally-delivered provinces and currently heating with oil, this is worth checking today, not after you’ve already gotten quotes.

If you’re switching from oil to gas instead of to a heat pump, note that OHPA doesn’t apply to that path — see our furnace cost guide for the oil-to-gas conversion cost instead.

Ontario’s Home Renovation Savings™ program, in more detail

Delivered jointly through Enbridge Gas and Save on Energy with support from the Ontario government, this program runs two streams depending on how many upgrades you’re doing.

The heat pump rebate specifically — up to $12,000 — does not require a pre-assessment, which is a meaningful simplification compared to older efficiency programs. (An older $7,500 figure circulating on some contractor sites is outdated, and a separate $7,700 figure is actually the insulation maximum in the assessment-required stream — some sites have garbled the two into a single, wrong heat pump number.) Rebate processing typically takes 8–16 weeks. Confirm any pre-approval requirements directly at homerenovationsavings.ca before installation.

How to check what’s actually open right now

1. Start with NRCan’s Greener Homes hub — it’s the federal index and usually links out to whichever provincial and utility programs are current.
2. Search your specific province + “heat pump rebate” and look for a .gc.ca, .gov, or recognized utility domain — not a contractor’s marketing page, which has an incentive to overstate rebate availability (as the still-widespread stale Greener Homes Grant listings show).
3. Call the program administrator directly if a web page is ambiguous about open/closed status. Program pages sometimes lag actual funding status by weeks.
4. Ask your shortlisted contractors which programs they’re currently registered installers for — this is also a legitimate contractor vetting question, since some programs require a registered installer.

The application-timing trap

The most common way homeowners lose out on a rebate isn’t ineligibility — it’s sequencing. Every program covered on this page that’s currently open requires pre-approval or a registration step completed before the heat pump is purchased or installed. Signing a contract first and applying for the rebate afterward disqualifies the claim in these programs. Before you sign anything with a contractor, confirm the required order of operations for whichever program you’re targeting.

Is it worth the paperwork?

If you’re already planning to install a heat pump, yes — the time cost of checking eligibility and applying is small relative to the potential offset, even a modest one. If a rebate is the only reason you’re considering a heat pump, look at the operating cost data first: the rebate should sweeten a decision that already makes sense, not be the sole reason for it.