Heat Pump Rebates in Ontario: What You Actually Get Back

One program pays out right now: Home Renovation Savings, run jointly by Enbridge Gas and Save on Energy. In a home heated by electricity, oil, propane or wood, a cold-climate air source heat pump earns $1,250 per ton, up to $7,500; in an Enbridge natural gas home, $500 per ton, up to $2,000. Ground source pays $2,000 per ton up to $12,000 in a non-gas home, a flat $3,000 in a gas home. The catch is in the words per ton: a three-ton system collects $3,750 in a non-gas home and $1,500 in a gas home, not the number in the advertising. And there is no open federal heat pump grant left for most Ontario homeowners to add to it.

The rates, straight from the program

From the Heat Pump Program Stream Requirements, the document the program administers itself against.

Three things decide your number: what heats the house today, how many tons the machine is rated at 8.3 °C (47 °F), and whether you own or rent it: rented kit pays $500 per ton whatever the fuel. Not square footage, not the price of the job.

The per-ton math nobody puts in the ad

Tonnage is not rounded. The program's own worked example: a unit rated 3.2 tons pays $1,600 in an Enbridge gas home ($500 × 3.2) or $4,000 in an oil, propane, wood or electrically heated home ($1,250 × 3.2).

So the caps sit further out than the headline suggests: six tons to reach $7,500, four tons to reach $2,000. Sizing comes from a Manual J load calculation, not square footage, but the GTA price guides publish rules of thumb: one puts a 1,200 sq ft bungalow at 2 tons and a 2,500 sq ft two-storey at 3.5 to 4 tons, another a drafty 3,000 sq ft home at 4 to 5 tons, a third a span of 1.5 to 5 tons. Through the rate, a non-gas home gets 3.5 × $1,250 = $4,375 or 4 × $1,250 = $5,000, while four tons is exactly where a gas home tops out at $2,000 and every extra ton pays nothing.

The program's multi-unit table fills in the rest: two 3-ton units (6 tons) pay $2,000 for a gas home or $7,500 for a non-gas one; a 1-ton plus a 2-ton unit pay $1,500 or $3,750. Up to three cold-climate air source measures count toward one rebate per eligible home.

What has closed, and why you keep seeing bigger numbers

Most inflated figures online are real numbers from dead programs.

• Canada Greener Homes Grant: closed; December 31, 2025 was the last day to submit documents.
• Canada Greener Homes Loan: closed, funding fully committed, no further applications approved. It was interest-free, $5,000 to $40,000 over 10 years; approved loans are unaffected.
• Enbridge Home Efficiency Rebate Plus (HER+): closed. Intake shut February 5, 2024, final deadline December 31, 2025, heat pump line up to $6,500.
• Oil to Heat Pump Affordability (OHPA), federal stream: July 31, 2026 was the last day to apply in Alberta, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, Quebec and Saskatchewan, documents due January 31, 2027. Ontario is co-delivered, and NRCan sends its residents to the IESO instead (below).

A heat pump rebate quoted anywhere but the Home Renovation Savings site is stale or not about Ontario. One GTA price guide read for this article calls a cold-climate ducted unit eligible for the full $12,000, a cap that is ground source only.

Nobody has published an end date

The program launched January 28, 2025 and is taking applications now. No administering body publishes a closing date: not the program site, not Save on Energy, not Enbridge Gas, not ontario.ca; the rate sheet carries a version date of May 2025 and nothing else. A November 30, 2026 end date circulates anyway (one GTA price guide read for this article states it outright) and appears on none of those pages, so treat it as unsourced. Save on Energy does say it adjusts "program incentives from time to time", and re-rated its business Retrofit program twice in 2026, so expect rates to move before the program does.

Stacking: one government, one rebate

You may not stack this rebate with another incentive from Enbridge Gas, IESO's Save on Energy or the Government of Ontario for the same measure. You may stack with other funders (a municipality, another utility, a manufacturer) provided the total from those sources stays under 100% of the cost to supply and install the heat pump. The attic insulation ceiling is tighter, 50% of the after-tax cost.

Past participation does not lock you out: a rebate under HER, HER+ or another Enbridge or Save on Energy program only blocks that same upgrade.

The energy audit question

A heat pump needs no home energy assessment. That is the biggest change from the Greener Homes era, when pre- and post-retrofit EnerGuide evaluations bracketed every project. Heat pumps, solar, smart thermostats and attic insulation now sit in the no-assessment stream: the two applications replace the audit, and the post-installation one is due within 30 days.

The assessment stream still covers the envelope: insulation, windows and doors, air sealing, heat pump water heaters. That route needs an initial assessment before work starts, two qualifying upgrades minimum and a follow-up assessment, and pays $600 covering both assessments (once per home) plus a $500 bonus for three or more upgrades where the post-renovation assessment falls on or after January 5, 2026. Envelope work already done cannot be claimed retroactively; the heat pump is the one upgrade you can still act on.

Equipment that actually qualifies

The rebate is written around a specific machine, not "a heat pump":

• On the list. Cold-climate air source and water-to-air ground source models must be active on Natural Resources Canada's eligible product list; de-listed, inactive or archived models do not qualify. Water-to-water ground source units must be on the ENERGY STAR geothermal list and sold in Canada.
• Minimum performance. HSPF2 Region V of 6.6, SEER2 of 15.2, rated heating capacity at 8.3 °C of at least 12,000 BTU/hr, a COP of 1.8 at −15 °C at maximum capacity, capacity maintenance of 70% of the 8.3 °C rating, and variable capacity: three or more distinct operating speeds or continuously variable speed, which covers most inverter units.
• Whole-house, year-round. It must heat the entire conditioned space including the basement, and cool. Air-to-water systems and direct-expansion ground loops are out, as is replacing an existing space-heating heat pump or adding a head to an existing multi-split.
• Sizing options. Gas and propane homes may use NRCan options A through D; oil, wood and electrically heated homes connected to the IESO-Controlled Grid are limited to C and D, the heating-led sizes.
• Who can apply. Owners only, never tenants; single detached, semi-detached, row, townhouse or mobile on a permanent foundation, or a unit in a stacked townhome, duplex or triplex with its own heating system and, for gas, its own meter; and a new build must have been occupied at least six months. Gas homes need an active Enbridge account.

You must also use a contractor from the participating list, and contractor registrations are currently paused: no new applications accepted, though the program says there may be opportunities to enrol in future. The site is inconsistent here: the same help page still tells homeowners to encourage an unlisted contractor to register. Ask your firm whether it is listed.

What it costs after the rebate

Ontario describes the program as covering up to 30 per cent of eligible measures. Work a three-ton cold-climate ducted job quoted at $10,000 installed:

• Enbridge gas home: 3 × $500 = $1,500 back, so $10,000 − $1,500 = $8,500 net.
• Electrically heated home: 3 × $1,250 = $3,750 back, so $10,000 − $3,750 = $6,250 net.

Neither lands on the province's figure. Up to 30 per cent is a ceiling, not a rate (the gas home gets a fraction of it, the electric home overshoots it), because the payment is set by tonnage, never by a share of the invoice.

Two things move that total. The cold-climate rating is a real premium (one guide puts it at $1,500 to $3,000 over a standard model), and it is not optional, because only cold-climate models qualify. And a 60-amp or 100-amp panel often needs replacing, which one guide puts as high as $1,500 to $3,500: enough on its own to erase a gas home's rebate.

One GTA price guide's published case study shows the per-ton trap in the wild: a 3-ton cold-climate ducted system at $10,500 plus a $330 thermostat, subtotal $10,830, less a claimed $7,500 rebate and a $100 thermostat rebate, netting about $3,230. But 3 tons pays 3 × $1,250 = $3,750, so the real net is $10,830 − $3,750 − $100 = $6,980, more than double the advertised figure.

If money is tight

Income-qualified households get the machine free. Save on Energy's Energy Affordability Program installs a cold-climate air source heat pump at no cost in eligible homes heated by electricity or oil. You qualify on household income ($48,220 before tax for one person, $96,439 for four, $127,576 for seven or more) or on any of nine listed assistance programs in the past 12 months, ODSP, Ontario Works, OESP, LEAP, GIS and the Allowance for the Survivor among them, or as an on-reserve community member. This is also how Ontario runs OHPA: NRCan says eligible homeowners here get free direct installation of a system worth up to $25,000 (up to $15,000 federal plus $10,000 provincial), with nothing paid to the applicant but a $250 cheque. One caution: NRCan's "new applicant" list on that page omits Ontario, so confirm intake with Save on Energy first.

Toronto homeowners can borrow the rest. The City's Home Energy Loan Program lends against the property, repaid on the tax bill, with a 20-year term for heat pumps and no EnerGuide assessment for heat-pump-only work. The ceiling is the lesser of 10 per cent of your current value assessment or $125,000, and it applies to the loan's total value (principal, interest and the administrative charge together), so what you can actually draw sits well below it. On most houses the assessment test binds first. Rates hold to September 30, 2026, from 3.34% over five years to 4.75% over 20 plus a 2% administrative charge, and HELP stacks with provincial, federal and utility rebates. A $10,000 loan over 10 years is $91 a month on the City's estimate, spread over 11 payments a year.