Ontario HVAC Rebates 2026

By the Get a Better Quote Research Team. Last verified: April 14, 2026.

Ontario homeowners have access to the richest HVAC rebate stack in Canada in 2026. The Home Renovation Savings Program (HRS), co-delivered by Save on Energy and Enbridge Gas, is the flagship. It replaced the federal Canada Greener Homes Grant and the Enbridge Home Efficiency Rebate Plus (HER+) as the single entry point for most residential retrofits, and it can pay up to $12,000 for a heat pump, $10,000 for solar, and $7,700 for insulation before any other program enters the picture.[1] Combined with the federal Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program (CGHAP) for income-eligible households, municipal loan programs like Toronto HELP, and the federal clean energy investment tax credit, the total public contribution toward a full retrofit commonly lands between $5,000 and $18,000 depending on scope and eligibility.[5]

This pillar page collects every rebate guide we publish, plus the policy context you need to avoid leaving money on the table. Start with the full directory if you want amounts and eligibility at a glance, the stacking guide if you want to know which programs combine, or the energy audit guide if you want to understand the pre-retrofit EnerGuide requirement that gates most of the bundled-path rebates. The April 2025 federal fuel charge removal gets its own guide because it changes the operating-cost math on gas-heated homes in ways that matter when you are comparing a furnace replacement against a heat pump conversion.[8] Everything cited on this page traces back to the source agency, the utility, or an Ontario Energy Board regulatory filing, never to contractor blogs or aggregator sites.

Start Here

• Ontario Home Energy Rebates 2026
  Complete directory of active programs with eligibility and amounts.
• Ontario HVAC Rebate Stacking Guide
  Which programs combine, application order, and real examples.
• Ontario Low-Income Energy Help 2026
  LEAP, HEAP, CGHAP, and Ontario Electricity Support Program eligibility.
• Energy Audit Ontario
  EnerGuide audit process, cost, and why most rebates require it first.
• Carbon Tax Removal Impact on Ontario Heating
  How the April 2025 federal fuel charge removal changed gas bills.

The 2026 Ontario Rebate Stack

The 2026 rebate landscape in Ontario runs on three layers. The first and largest layer is the Home Renovation Savings Program, delivered through saveonenergy.ca and branded at homerenovationsavings.ca, which consolidates residential electricity and gas incentives into a single application flow.[1][2] HRS is funded from the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) conservation and demand management framework, which carries roughly $10.9 billion of provincial funding over twelve years and is the reason Ontario can afford the per-project amounts you see in the rate card.[4]

The second layer is the federal Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program (CGHAP), administered by Natural Resources Canada. CGHAP is the income-qualified successor to the broader Canada Greener Homes Grant and is designed to stack on top of HRS for low- and moderate-income households rather than replace it.[5] The third layer is utility and regulatory: Enbridge Gas continues to deliver conservation programming as a co-delivery partner on HRS and also runs its own prescriptive and business-industrial incentive streams for equipment that falls outside the residential HRS catalog.[3] Municipal loan programs (Toronto HELP and similar) and the federal clean energy investment tax credit sit alongside these layers and are treated as separate benefits that can be combined with any of the three.

Stacking Rules: What Combines and What Does Not

The core stacking rule in 2026 is simple: HRS is the residential base, CGHAP is the income-qualified top-up, and municipal or tax-credit programs are parallel benefits. HRS can be combined with CGHAP for eligible households, with municipal interest-free loan programs like Toronto HELP, with the federal clean energy investment tax credit on solar, and with provincial sales tax exemptions on qualifying energy-efficient equipment.[1] You cannot stack HRS with the closed Canada Greener Homes Grant or with the closed Enbridge HER+ program, because neither is accepting new applications; contractor marketing that still lists HER+ alongside HRS as a combined offer is out of date and should be verified directly against the utility site before you sign anything.[3]

Application order matters. The pre-retrofit EnerGuide assessment has to happen before any qualifying work begins on the bundled path, and HRS has to be registered before or alongside CGHAP so that the federal program can see the provincial rebate in the file. Install first, register second is the single fastest way to disqualify yourself from the bundled amounts. Our stacking guide walks through the order in detail with worked examples.

The Pre-Retrofit EnerGuide Audit Requirement

Almost every bundled-path rebate in Ontario is gated by a pre-retrofit EnerGuide home evaluation performed by an energy advisor registered with Natural Resources Canada.[5] The advisor performs a blower-door test, inventories the building envelope and mechanicals, models the home in HOT2000, and issues an EnerGuide rating report that serves as the baseline for any subsequent rebate claim. HRS reimburses the evaluation up to $600, which covers most or all of the typical $500 to $700 retail cost if you complete at least one qualifying upgrade.[1] After the work is done, a post-retrofit evaluation confirms the improvements and unlocks the final rebate payment. If you take the single-upgrade path, the audit is optional but you also forgo the bundled-path uplift.

The audit is also the strategic document that tells you which upgrades will actually move the needle in your specific home. Two homes on the same street can produce very different HOT2000 models depending on wall construction, air leakage, attic depth, and basement insulation, and the advisor report will rank recommended upgrades by projected energy savings and payback. Using that report to pick which HRS measures to bundle is the single biggest lever you have to push the net out-of-pocket cost down. Our Ontario energy audit guide covers what to expect on the day of the assessment, how long the report takes to arrive, and the common mistakes homeowners make when scheduling the pre-retrofit visit too close to their planned installation date.

Income-Qualified Programs

Ontario households under specific income thresholds have access to a second tier of support that sits parallel to HRS. The Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program (CGHAP) is the federal piece: it funds deeper retrofits for low- and moderate-income households, with larger contributions than the base HRS amounts and no requirement to pay out of pocket before reimbursement.[5] On the provincial side, the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program (LEAP) provides emergency bill relief for customers facing disconnection, while the Ontario Electricity Support Program (OESP) gives an on-bill monthly credit to qualifying electricity customers based on household size and income.[6][7] The Home Assistance Program and Energy Affordability Program deliver free energy upgrades (including cold climate heat pumps in some cases) with no cost-share from the homeowner.

Eligibility thresholds for each program are different and are based on household size, after-tax income, and in some cases energy burden (the share of income spent on utilities). The Low-Income Energy Help guide walks through each program, the application path, and the documentation you need to assemble before you apply.

What Changed in 2026

Two major changes define the 2026 landscape. First, the federal fuel charge on natural gas, propane, and home heating oil was removed effective April 1, 2025, ending the line item most Ontario homeowners knew as the carbon tax on their Enbridge gas bill.[8] Enbridge Gas reflected the removal through its Quarterly Rate Adjustment Mechanism and its 2026 Rates Application before the Ontario Energy Board, and bills issued after the adjustment effective date no longer carry the federal charge.[9] The practical effect is lower operating costs for gas-heated homes, which shifts the payback math against electric heat pumps but does not eliminate the case for conversion given the HRS rebate amounts still on offer.

Second, the residential rebate architecture is now fully consolidated under HRS. The Canada Greener Homes Grant closed to new applications, Enbridge HER+ closed and re-emerged as a co-delivery channel inside HRS, and the residential workflow now starts and ends at saveonenergy.ca rather than bouncing between federal and utility portals.[1][3] If you last looked at Ontario rebates in 2023 or 2024, throw out that mental map and start over.

Frequently Asked Questions

This pillar page is a living index. Articles are added as new cost guides, rebate changes, and regulatory updates land. Every linked guide cites only Tier-1 Canadian sources.