The cost of switching to a heat pump in Ireland: 2026 report

Ireland's heat pump grant changed on 6 October 2026: a house can now get up to €14,500, up from €12,500.⁵This report brings together what is actually known about the cost of switching: official prices from SEAI's grant scheme, the grant rules, official fuel prices, and the CSO's record of how 1,367,605 BER-rated homes are heated. Where we model a figure, we say so and show the working.

Key findings

1. Real jobs cost less than many guides suggest for apartments, and about the same for houses. SEAI's median price for a heat pump in a semi-detached or end of terrace house was €16,741 across jobs paid from January to June 2026; €17,000 for a detached house, €16,000 for a mid-terrace and €9,025 for an apartment.²
2. The grant covers most of a typical house job, but not all of it. SEAI's median price for every house type is above the €14,500 maximum. A house gets €10,500 for the heat pump, plus up to €2,000 only if new radiators are needed and €2,000 only when a qualifying boiler or system is removed. Against the median semi-d price, the full €14,500 would leave about €2,241 to pay, but many jobs cost more.
3. A heat pump usually costs less to run than oil, but not always. For a typical 1978–1999 oil-heated semi-d, a heat pump would cost €450–€1,060 a year at standard electricity prices against €1,030–€1,210 for oil. At the bottom of the efficiency range (€720–€1,060) it can cost almost as much as oil.
4. Oil heating is concentrated in the north-west and west. Oil was the main heating fuel in 72% of BER-rated dwellings in Donegal, 68% in Mayo and 67% in Roscommon, against 34% nationally and ≈5% in Dublin.¹
5. 15% of BER-rated dwellings already have a heat pump, mostly newer homes.¹

How much does a heat pump cost in Ireland?

SEAI's median prices for an air to water heat pump in a house, from completed grant-funded jobs, ranged from €16,000 (mid-terrace) to €17,000 (detached) before the grant. Individual jobs vary widely around those medians. There are three kinds of cost figure, and they shouldn't be mixed up:

• Observed (SEAI medians). The middle price of real grant-funded jobs, from the costs contractors submitted when the grant was paid. Half of jobs cost less, half more. SEAI doesn't say how many of the 23,412 upgrades in its sample were heat pumps, or what each job included, and these jobs were paid under the grant in force before October 2026.²
• Published guide ranges. Ranges from Irish cost guides for a home of that size, including VAT at 9%. These are estimates, not measured prices.^6,7
• Modelled (our calculator). The guide range for the home's size, plus €1,500–€5,000 where new radiators are needed.⁸ Floor areas are the CSO's averages for homes built 1978–1999.¹²

What moves the price for an individual home:

• Heat loss, from the room-by-room calculation that sizes the heat pump. Insulation matters more than floor area.
• Radiators. Heat pumps run at lower water temperatures, so some rooms need larger radiators or underfloor heating.
• Hot water. A new cylinder, harder to fit where a combi boiler had none.
• Installation complexity: where the outdoor unit goes, pipe runs, electrical work, and removing the old boiler and oil tank.

See heat pump costs in Ireland for what a quote should include and why quotes differ.

Heat pump grants in Ireland in 2026

Since 6 October 2026, SEAI's grant for a heat pump in a house is up to €14,500, in three parts.³Apartments get up to €11,500.⁴ The maximum is not automatic: only the heat pump part applies to every eligible home.

Who qualifies, in SEAI's rules:

• The home was built and lived in before 2021.
• Homes built before 2007 need a technical assessment first (SEAI pays €200 towards it), unless a valid BER shows a Heat Loss Indicator of 2.3 or less.
• The grant offer must be in place before any work starts, and the installer must be SEAI-registered.
• The grant can't exceed the cost of the works.

Our guide to the SEAI heat pump grant covers applying step by step. Grant rules can change; check SEAI's own page before you apply.

Installation costs after the grant

The table applies the grant to the modelled ranges for a typical 1978–1999 oil-heated home of each type. "New radiators" assumes all three grant parts apply; "keeping the radiators" assumes no central heating grant. Both assume the home qualifies for boiler scrappage because it's removing an oil boiler.

Heat pump running costs compared with oil and gas

For a typical 1978–1999 semi-detached house, a heat pump would cost about €450–€1,060 a year to run at standard electricity prices (about €690 at the average efficiency measured in Irish homes), against €1,030–€1,210 for heating oil. The calculation, with the same inputs our heat pump calculator uses:

Oil now = fuel used × kerosene price. Heat pump = useful heat ÷ SPF × electricity price. The range runs from the smallest heat need at the best efficiency to the largest heat need at the worst. Seasonal performance factor (SPF) is the heat a pump delivers over a year for each unit of electricity, and it makes the biggest difference:

The same house on other fuels (the heat need changes with each fuel's boiler efficiency):

The SEAI fuel table is dated 1 July 2026, but its electricity and gas prices come from SEAI's price survey for July to December 2025.¹⁰For your own home, use your own tariff and last year's fuel bills. Our heat pump running costs guide compares more homes.

County-by-county heating research

The CSO's Building Energy Rating records show where switching from oil matters most. Oil was the main space heating fuel in 72% of BER-rated dwellings in Donegal, 68% in Mayo, 67% in Roscommon, 65% in Leitrim, 64% in Cavan, against 34% nationally.¹In Dublin, where most BER-rated homes use mains gas, it was ≈5%. Those are shares of homes with a BER since 2009, not of every home.

See every county's heating statistics→

What affects heat pump payback?

Payback is what you pay after the grant divided by the yearly running-cost saving. Every part of that sum is uncertain: the price you're quoted, which grant parts you get, fuel and electricity prices, and how efficiently the system runs. Our three worked examples show how wide the answer can be:

Where the saving could be zero or negative, we say payback isn't certain rather than give a number. A claim that a heat pump "pays for itself in X years" for every home is misleading: it depends on the house, the design and the tariff. A heat pump also replaces a boiler that would need replacing anyway, which simple payback figures ignore.

Method and limitations

• Sources and periods: CSO Domestic BER Q2 2026 (released 26 August 2026; dwellings rated 2009 to June 2026); SEAI median costs (jobs paid January to June 2026); SEAI grant rules (checked 9 October 2026); SEAI fuel prices (1 July 2026; electricity and gas surveyed July to December 2025).
• County figures are CSO's whole-number percentages; five counties combine city and county rows and are approximate (≈).
• Costs are either SEAI's observed medians or published guide ranges, never our own survey. Modelled after-grant costs subtract SEAI's grant amounts and never go below zero.
• Running costs use the calculator's method: CSO metered fuel use per m², SEAI efficiency bands and prices, SEAI's SPF range and the measured Irish average. Rounded to the nearest €10.
• Updates: this is a dated report. If grants or prices change, we publish a new edition and leave this one as it is, with its figures and data files.

The full method, with every input and worked examples you can check by hand, is on our methodology page. All figures are in the downloads below.

Research downloads

Charts are in the media centre, as PNG and SVG.

CSO statistics are reused under its CC BY 4.0 licence.¹⁵ Our tables and charts can be reused under CC BY 4.0 with a credit.

Calculate your own heat pump installation costs

The report describes typical homes. For yours, the calculator uses the same method with your home's type, age, size, BER and fuel. No sign-up, nothing leaves your browser.