Heat Pump Rebates in Ontario: What You Actually Get Back

One program pays out right now. It is 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 it earns $500 per ton, up to $2,000. Ground source pays $2,000 per ton up to $12,000 in a non-gas home, and a flat $3,000 in a gas home. The catch is in the words per ton. A ton here is a unit of heating capacity, not the weight of the box. 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 runs 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, and not the price of the job.

The per-ton math nobody puts in the ad

Tonnage is not rounded off. Take 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, an engineer's room-by-room heat-loss sum, not from square footage. The GTA price guides still 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. Run those through the rate. A non-gas home gets 3.5 × $1,250 = $4,375 or 4 × $1,250 = $5,000. 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. The funding is fully committed and no further applications are approved. It was interest-free, $5,000 to $40,000 over 10 years. Loans already approved 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, with 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 it is not about Ontario. One GTA price guide we read in August called a cold-climate ducted unit eligible for the full $12,000. That cap 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, and one GTA price guide stated it outright when we read it in August. It appears on none of those pages, so treat it as unsourced. Save on Energy does say it adjusts "program incentives from time to time". It re-rated its business Retrofit program twice in 2026, so expect rates to move before the program does.

Stacking: one government, one rebate

Stacking means claiming two rebates on the same job. 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, such as a municipality, another utility or a manufacturer. The total from those sources has to stay under 100% of the cost to supply and install the heat pump. The attic insulation ceiling is tighter, at 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. Back then an EnerGuide evaluation, a rated inspection of the whole house, was needed before and after 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 building envelope, meaning the shell that keeps the heat in: insulation, windows and doors, air sealing, heat pump water heaters. That route needs an assessment before work starts, at least two qualifying upgrades, and a follow-up assessment. It pays $600 covering both assessments (once per home). Add 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 after the fact. 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. The list runs 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, and capacity maintenance of 70% of the 8.3 °C rating. The first two of those are the heating and cooling efficiency scores, and COP is the heat you get out for each unit of power in. The unit also needs 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 whole conditioned space, the basement included, and it must cool. Air-to-water systems and direct-expansion ground loops are out. So 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 on the IESO-Controlled Grid are limited to C and D, the heating-led sizes.
• Who can apply. Owners only, never tenants. The home must be single detached, semi-detached, row, townhouse or mobile on a permanent foundation. A unit in a stacked townhome, duplex or triplex also counts if it has its own heating system and, for gas, its own meter. A new build must have been lived in for at least six months. Gas homes need an active Enbridge account.

You must also use a contractor from the participating list, and it must be registered and listed before the heat pump goes in. New contractor registration is now open for the heat pump stream, so a firm that is not listed yet can apply to join. 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. Take 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 and 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 carries a real premium, and one guide puts it at $1,500 to $3,000 over a standard model. 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. That is 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. It prices a 3-ton cold-climate ducted system at $10,500 plus a $330 thermostat, subtotal $10,830. It then takes off a claimed $7,500 rebate and a $125 thermostat rebate, netting about $3,205. But 3 tons pays 3 × $1,250 = $3,750. So the real net is $10,830 − $3,750 − $125 = $6,955, 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. You also qualify on any of nine listed assistance programs in the past 12 months, among them ODSP, Ontario Works, OESP, LEAP, GIS and the Allowance for the Survivor, 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, made up of up to $15,000 federal plus $10,000 provincial. Nothing is 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, and you repay it on the tax bill. The term is 20 years for heat pumps, with no EnerGuide assessment for heat-pump-only work. The ceiling is the lesser of $125,000 or 10 per cent of your current value assessment, which is the City's assessed value of your home. That ceiling covers 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 years, plus a 2% administrative charge. 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.