Heat pump in France: price, 2026 grants and your savings

What the calculator works out, step by step

The calculator starts from your département. For each of the 96 départements of mainland France we computed the heating degree days (DJU, 18 °C base) at the Météo-France station closest to the prefecture, averaged over 2015-2024, from the daily records published under an open licence. Degree days measure how harsh a winter is: 933 at Bastia_Sapc (Haute-Corse), 2,736 at Mende-Ville (Lozère). In the “Refine” panel you can pick the station nearest your home, in the mountains or on the coast, because one département can vary by a factor of two.

With the floor area and insulation level, the engine estimates the heat your home needs in a year. If you know your real consumption (gas meter readings, litres of heating oil bought, electricity bills), enter it: it replaces the estimate and is always the better figure. Then come the heat pump’s consumption (heat divided by its seasonal efficiency), the bill before and after at energy prices read from the source, the installation price, the grants, the out-of-pocket cost and the payback time.

MaPrimeRénov’ 2026: what is left for a heat pump

The per-item MaPrimeRénov’ has shrunk a lot. In mainland France, on 1 September 2026, it funds only five kinds of work: ground-source heat pumps, air-to-water heat pumps, connection to a district heating network, removal of an oil tank and the energy audit. Wall or loft insulation and air-to-air heat pumps are no longer on the list. Higher-income households (pink category) get no per-item grant at all.

Three conditions matter for a heat pump: the home must have been completed more than 2 years ago (not fifteen, as some sites still say), lived in as the owner’s main residence or let for at least 6 years, and the work done by an RGE-certified firm. Per-item grants are capped at €20,000 over five years for the same home. The colour-by-colour detail is on the income ceilings page.

The CEE bonus and the Coup de pouce Chauffage

Energy-savings certificates (CEE) require energy suppliers to fund works. For an air-to-water heat pump, sheet BAR-TH-171 sets a volume in cumulative discounted kilowatt-hours (kWh cumac): 90,900 for a house if the unit’s seasonal efficiency is between 111% and 140%, 109,200 above that, adjusted for heated area and climate zone (×1.2 in H1, ×0.7 in H3). The Coup de pouce Chauffage multiplies that volume by 5 when the heat pump replaces an individual coal, oil or gas boiler in a main residence, until the end of 2030. Since 1 September 2026 the model installed must also hold the “quality and industrial resilience” approval created by a decree of May 2026.

A volume of kWh cumac does not tell you what you will be paid: each firm sets its own price. To give an honest order of magnitude we value it at the average transaction price published by the national Emmy registry: €8.82 per cumac megawatt-hour in September 2026, €14.64 for “fuel poverty” certificates generated in blue and yellow households. The real bonus is the one the firm writes on the quote, before you sign.

The cap: why MaPrimeRénov’ can be lower than the flat rate

The decree governing MaPrimeRénov’ sets a minimum share the household must pay. MaPrimeRénov’, the CEE bonus and other public grants together may not exceed 90 % of the eligible expense for a blue household, 75 % for yellow, 60 % for purple and 40 % for pink, the expense being counted up to the ceiling (€12,000 for an air-to-water heat pump). With a generous Coup de pouce, MaPrimeRénov’ is what goes down. Many calculators add the two grants without applying this rule and show an out-of-pocket cost that is too low; this one applies it and shows the amount removed. Details on the grant cap page.

The same home in three climates

Climate changes everything: the heat to produce, hence the saving, but also the CEE bonus, which is higher in zone H1 than in zone H3. Here is the same house in a mild, a middling and a cold département:

In the south the yearly saving is smaller and the payback longer, all the more since the CEE bonus there is cut by 30%. In the east and in the mountains the heat pump pays for itself faster, provided it is sized for the hard frosts. The table of the 96 départements makes the comparison for your home.

A heat pump’s real efficiency

Data sheets often quote a coefficient of performance of 4 or 5. In the field, ADEME measured around a hundred heat pumps in private homes over several heating seasons: the average yearly efficiency of an air-to-water unit is 2.9, with installations ranging from 1.8 to 4.5, and 4.1 for ground-source. We use these measured values by default. Low-temperature emitters (underfloor heating, oversized radiators) and a well-tuned unit push efficiency up; old cast-iron radiators that need 65 °C water pull it down.

The energy prices used

Electricity: regulated Base tariff at 9 kVA published by the Energy Regulatory Commission, €0.1985 per kilowatt-hour including tax since 1 August 2026. Gas: average price paid by French households in the first half of 2026 according to Eurostat, €0.1347 per kilowatt-hour. Heating oil: French heating gas oil price recorded by the European Commission in the week of 19 October 2026, €1,931 per 1,000 litres. A script rereads these prices at each update, and you can enter your own in the “Refine” panel.

What may change in 2027

The annex to the 2027 draft budget on energy renovation states that “priority decarbonisation works, in particular heat pumps, will be funded solely by energy-savings certificates”. If Parliament agrees, heat pumps would get no MaPrimeRénov’ from 2027, only the CEE bonus. It has not been voted as of 22 October 2026: we present it as a plan, and the MaPrimeRénov’ heat pump page works out the difference for each income category.

Who makes this site

This site works out in a minute, with no contact details, the price, the 2026 MaPrimeRénov’ grant, the CEE bonus in official kWh cumac, the out-of-pocket cost and the yearly saving of a heat pump with your département’s real climate. It is published by Radif Partners, with no link to any installer, energy supplier or the Anah, introduced on the About page. Every figure has its source, listed in the method.