Heating rebates in Ontario and Ottawa: what is open in 2026

Last checked: October 2026. Programs open, close and change their terms without much warning, and the amounts move with them. Treat everything below as a map of where the money sits, confirm the current figures on the program sites before you count on them, and tell us you want to claim when you ask for a quote so the job is sequenced to qualify.

The plain picture for an Ottawa homeowner in 2026: the money is aimed at heat pumps, insulation, air sealing and windows. A gas furnace replaced with another gas furnace claims little on its own. A furnace replaced as part of a wider efficiency job, or paired with a heat pump as a hybrid, can claim a good deal more.

The programs on the table

• Enbridge Home Efficiency Rebate Plus (HER+). Enbridge Gas supplies most of the Ottawa area, and HER+ is its whole-home program. It pays rebates on measures such as cold-climate heat pumps, attic and wall insulation, air sealing, windows and smart thermostats. It works through a pre-retrofit energy audit and a post-retrofit audit by a registered energy advisor, and nothing installed before the first audit counts. Rebates are typically a few hundred to several thousand dollars depending on the measure.
• Canada Greener Homes Loan. A federal interest-free loan for eligible retrofits, repaid over a fixed term, that runs alongside the audit route. It is the piece that lets a household do the heat pump and the insulation in one go rather than one per decade.
• Better Homes Ottawa. The City of Ottawa's own loan program for deeper energy retrofits, repaid through the property over a long term, aimed at the bigger packages: heat pumps, envelope upgrades and the like. It has its own eligibility rules and a limited intake, so check whether it is open.
• The federal Greener Homes Grant closed to new applicants in 2024. If a salesperson quotes it, they are working from an old brochure.
• Manufacturer and seasonal promotions. Furnace and heat pump makers run rebates on specific models in spring and fall. Small, but real, and we apply them when they are open.

How the audit route works

Most of the money runs through an EnerGuide home evaluation. A registered energy advisor visits, runs a blower-door test to measure air leakage, inspects the insulation and the heating equipment, and produces a report with the house's rating and a list of recommended measures. You then do the work. The advisor comes back for the post-retrofit evaluation, the new rating goes on file, and the rebates are paid against the measures that were completed and documented.

Two things catch people out. The first audit has to happen before any equipment is replaced; a furnace or heat pump installed the week before the advisor arrives is not eligible. And the equipment has to be on the program list, installed by a contractor the program recognises, with the invoice showing model and serial numbers. We have done enough of these to sequence the job correctly.

What a gas furnace can claim

• A manufacturer rebate on the model, when one is running.
• A smart thermostat rebate, where open, on a thermostat we install with the furnace.
• A share of the whole-home rebate when the furnace is one line in a package that includes insulation or air sealing and goes through the audit.
• Nothing at all in some seasons. Worth knowing before you are promised otherwise.

Where the heat pump money is

The larger rebates are for cold-climate air-source heat pumps, including hybrid systems that keep the gas furnace for the coldest Ottawa nights and run the heat pump the rest of the season. If the rebate is part of why you are replacing the furnace, price the hybrid system before the furnace alone, because the furnace alone will usually claim little and the hybrid claims the heat pump amount. Whether a heat pump makes sense in Ottawa's climate at all is in heat pump or gas furnace in Ottawa. A furnace replaced now can be paired with a heat pump later if the blower and the thermostat are chosen with that in mind.

The order of operations

• Decide what you want done: furnace, hybrid, insulation, some combination.
• Register with the program and book the pre-retrofit audit. Do not replace anything yet.
• Get quotes with model numbers, and confirm each model is on the program list.
• Do the work and keep every invoice.
• Book the post-retrofit audit.
• Submit the claim inside the deadline, with the invoices and the two audit reports.
• If you used a loan, the loan paperwork runs in parallel and has its own deadlines.

What is not a rebate

An "instant rebate" on a quote with no program named is a discount with a costume on. Ask which program and look it up. A financing offer is not a rebate either; it spreads the cost, with interest, and should be compared against your own line of credit or the interest-free federal loan above. And a rebate that requires you to rent the equipment rather than own it is a rental contract first and a rebate second; read the exit terms.

For a quote that includes whatever is open on the day, with the audit sequence built into the schedule, ask about furnace installation or a heat pump. The installed price ranges without rebates are in new furnace prices in Ottawa and Ontario.