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California has opened and is not taking applications at the moment

California Heat Pump Rebates: Where They Actually Stand

What California Energy Commission has actually published, what it points homeowners at meanwhile, and which states are open today.

Paused
Where the programme stands
open once, not taking applications now
up to $14,000 per unit
Largest figure the office prints
whole home project cap
3
Figures published in all
each with the condition attached
Yes / Yes
Income rule, approved contractor
income sets the size of the award
The answer

Where California actually stands

PausedHome Electrification and Appliance Rebates (HEEHRA) Phase I

California has opened and is not taking applications at the moment. Home Electrification and Appliance Rebates (HEEHRA) Phase I is run by California Energy Commission. Nationally 13 of 50 states are taking applications and 31 have announced a programme without opening one.

  • California prints 3 figures, the largest of them up to $14,000 per unit for whole home project cap. Each one below carries the sentence or table row it came from.
  • The heat pump line is up to $8,000. It applies single family, household income under 80 percent of area median income; single family reservations are not being taken right now.
  • Income decides the size of the award in California, or whether there is one at all. Two income bands set the single family amount, and there is no band above 150 percent of area median income.
  • The work has to go through a contractor the programme has approved. the work must be done by a contractor enrolled in TECH Clean California and trained on these rebates, and the rebate must be reserved before anything is bought
  • There is no application to make yet. California Energy Commission is the office that will run it.

California Energy Commission

HEEHRA Phase I rebates opened to income-eligible, single-family households in November 2024; paused February 2025, resumed March 2025, fully reserved June 2025, reopened October 2025, fully reserved again February 2026

Inflation Reduction Act Residential Energy Rebate Programs, California Energy Commission

Read September 23, 2026.

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Every figure the office prints

All 3 California figures

Each figure carries the condition California Energy Commission attached to it, and the condition is the half that decides whether the figure applies to a particular house. Where the office wrote a sentence beside the number, that sentence is reproduced whole and linked to the page it was read from, because a paraphrase of an eligibility rule is a different statement than the rule.

Whole home project cap

up to $14,000 per unit

Applies income qualified multifamily properties, which the page says are still open.

The program is also providing up to $14,000 per unit in rebates to income-qualified multifamily properties for heat pumps for space heating and cooling, heat pump water heaters, cooktops, ranges, overs, and heat pump clothes dryers, as well as electrical equipment such as electrical panel upgrades and wiring.
California Energy Commission, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

Air source heat pump

up to $8,000

Applies single family, household income under 80 percent of area median income; single family reservations are not being taken right now.

The HEEHRA Phase I Program provides up to $8,000 in rebates to income-qualified, California homeowners for the installation of a new, energy efficient heat pump HVAC system.
California Energy Commission, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

Air source heat pump

up to a $4,000 rebate

Applies single family, household income between 80 and 150 percent of area median income.

California residents with single family household incomes between 80 percent and 150 percent area median income (AMI) are eligible for up to a $4,000 rebate.
California Energy Commission, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source
Who it is for, and who may do the work

The two conditions that end most applications

Income and the contractor list are where the largest number of applications stop, and both are usually discovered late. Nationally 34 states publish an income rule and 28 of those tier the award by it, meaning income decides how much is paid rather than only whether anything is; 23 require the work to go through a contractor the programme has approved, which generally excludes work a homeowner does themselves.

Who qualifies in California

Income decides the size of the award in California, or whether there is one at all. Two income bands set the single family amount, and there is no band above 150 percent of area median income.

The HEEHRA rebates are based on verified, annual household income. California residents with single family household incomes between 80 percent and 150 percent area median income (AMI) are eligible for up to a $4,000 rebate. Californians with single family household incomes that are less than 80 percent AMI are eligible for up to an $8,000 rebate.
California Energy Commission, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

Who may do the work in California

The work has to go through a contractor the programme has approved. the work must be done by a contractor enrolled in TECH Clean California and trained on these rebates, and the rebate must be reserved before anything is bought

Rebates are only available through contractors who are enrolled in TECH and trained in the HEEHRA rebates. Qualified contractors can be found through The Switch Is On's Contractor Finder.
California Energy Commission, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source
An installer in a dust mask and gloves kneeling on joists in a bare attic, laying a fresh batt of pink insulation into the bay beside several already filled, with the roof sheathing close overhead
Fifteen states print a dollar figure for insulation, which puts it fifth behind the air source pump, the whole home cap, the water heater and the electrical panel. It is also the measure most likely to be required before the rest: several offices will pay for a pump only after the envelope has been dealt with, on the reasoning that a pump sized to a leaking house is a pump sized wrong. Where an office has written that rule down, the state page quotes it. “Installing installation in an attic (9337)”, The EnergySmart Academy, CC0
The other money

A California rebate is not the federal tax credit

These are two separate programmes and conflating them is the commonest error on pages about this. A California rebate is money off the job, applied for through California Energy Commission under its own rules. The federal credit is money off a tax bill, claimed when filing, with no application and no approval step. Different timing, different paperwork, and qualifying for one says nothing about qualifying for the other.

California Energy Commission is one of only 10 state offices that address on its own pages whether the two can be claimed together. Its sentence is below, exactly as written, because whether two kinds of money can be combined on one job is a tax question and the office’s own wording is the only safe answer to it.

California on combining the two

Please note that the federal 25C tax credit expires at the end of the year and is only available for heat pumps placed into service by December 31, 2025. This Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit tax credit could provide additional financial benefits to homeowners.
California Energy Commission, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source
How California compares

13 states are taking applications, 31 are not

California is in the larger group. Only 13 of the fifty states are taking applications from homeowners, and 31 have announced a programme without opening it, which is the commonest position in the country. The states that are open are Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin.

Across the country 155 separate dollar figures are printed and 21 states print none at all. The spread has little to do with climate: it tracks how each state chose to divide a federal allocation between a small number of large whole home awards and a large number of small per appliance ones.

A tall grey outdoor condenser unit standing on a frame against a stone garden wall, its fins and louvred side panel filling the frame, no maker’s plate or badge visible anywhere on it
The outdoor half of a heat pump is the same box in the same place as the outdoor half of an air conditioner, which is why so many homeowners cannot tell from the yard which one they already own. It matters to the paperwork: an office that pays for a swap usually wants to know what the house burns today, and Arizona has written that from September 2026 it will pay only where the equipment being replaced was already electric. “Outdoor air conditioner unit installed in residential garden space”, Shixart1985, CC BY 2.0

California heat pump rebate questions

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Heat pump rebates in other states

California heating assistanceHelp with the heating bill itself, which is a different programme with its own income test and its own deadline.California heating fuel pricesWhat the fuel in the tank costs this winter, which is the number a heat pump is usually being weighed against.California winter shutoff rulesWhether a utility may disconnect heat in winter where you live, and the dates the protection runs.California heating seasonWhen the heat normally goes on, which is the window any of this work has to be finished inside.

California read September 23, 2026 from California Energy Commission’s own pages, linked beside every figure and every rule. A programme can open, reserve its funding and stop taking applications inside a single season, so the office page linked above is what governs on the day. Every state is on the home energy rebates hub.