Heat Pump Rebates in Nova Scotia (2026): The New Federal Rebate, HARP and What's Open Now

Two things happened this autumn that change the rebate picture in Nova Scotia. On 8 October 2026 the federal government announced a National Heat Pump Rebate worth up to $10,000, the biggest new support in years, and it isn't open yet. And the province's heating bill rebate, HARP, reopened on 1 October at $400. Meanwhile the most generous program of the last few years, Oil to Heat Pump Affordability, stopped taking new Nova Scotia applications on 2 July 2026.

Here's an honest map: what's confirmed, what isn't, what you can use today, and, because it's our trade, the ductwork that no announcement mentions.

A note before the numbers: amounts, deadlines and funding change constantly, and 2026 has moved faster than most years. The federal rebate and HARP sections were verified on 12 October 2026 against the Government of Canada and Province of Nova Scotia pages linked below; the Efficiency Nova Scotia program sections were last checked in July and August. Treat every figure as a starting point and confirm before you plan around it.

New: the National Heat Pump Rebate (announced, not open)

Announced by the Prime Minister on 8 October 2026 (Prime Minister's Office; Government of Canada):

Efficiency Nova Scotia says "limited information is available" so far, and nothing published says whether ductwork is covered. We cover it in full, including whether to wait and how to get your house ready, in the National Heat Pump Rebate in Nova Scotia.

What else changed in 2026

Before October, the story was the wind-down of the federal Canada Greener Homes Initiative. The $5,000 Greener Homes Grant closed to new applicants in early 2026, and the interest-free Greener Homes Loan became fully subscribed and stopped taking new applications. If you already had an approved grant or loan, that funding carries on — but for anyone starting fresh in 2026, those two big federal supports are effectively off the table.

That's a real change from the "stack the grant, the loan, and the provincial rebate" era. Until the National Heat Pump Rebate opens, the supports that remain are narrower and, in the most generous cases, income-tested.

Oil to Heat Pump Affordability (OHPA) — closed in Nova Scotia

This is the important correction if you've been reading about rebates for a while. OHPA is no longer accepting new applications in Nova Scotia. The program's funding was fully allocated — a standby list went up in February 2026 — and Efficiency Nova Scotia closed it to new applicants on July 2, 2026.

Watch out for the deadline mismatch. Natural Resources Canada's OHPA page still lists July 31, 2026 as the final day to apply, and plenty of contractor blogs are repeating it. That federal date applies to provinces where homeowners apply through the federal portal. Nova Scotia was a co-delivery province — applications ran through Efficiency Nova Scotia — so the provincial closure is the one that governs here. If a page tells you a Nova Scotian still has until July 31, it's out of date.

For the record, while it ran OHPA offered up to $15,000 to switch from oil to a cold-climate heat pump, income-tested at or below median after-tax income, for oil-heated primary residences. Already-approved applications continue — the closure affects new ones only. If yours is approved, keep your oil receipts, quotes, and equipment specs, and finish the work within the program's documentation timelines.

What's open today: the Home Energy Assessment path

With OHPA closed and the federal rebate not yet open, the main door to Efficiency Nova Scotia rebates is the Home Energy Assessment — a $199 assessment (waived for income-qualified households) where an Energy Advisor spends a couple of hours evaluating your insulation, air leakage, and mechanical systems. It unlocks eligibility for rebates of up to $5,000 on recommended upgrades and eligible products, heat pumps among them.

The order of operations matters: book the assessment before you buy anything. Doing it backwards can cost you the eligibility entirely. The older standalone Home Heating System Rebate wound down at the end of 2025, so this is now the route rather than an instant point-of-sale discount.

Income-qualified programs open today

If your household income qualifies, this is where the leverage sits until the federal rebate opens, and the Prime Minister's Office says that rebate can be combined with provincial programs like these.

The Moderate Income Rebate stacks with the Home Energy Assessment rebates, and combined they can reach roughly $10,000 — which makes it the most substantial support open today. Note that the amounts moved in February 2026 (the provincial top-up was reduced), and eligibility is scaled by household size, so the current figures are worth confirming directly rather than trusting any number you read second-hand, including ours.

Below that, HomeWarming offers no-cost energy upgrades for income-qualified homeowners. Like OHPA, the Moderate Income Rebate requires approval before you start work — apply and get confirmation first, or you can forfeit it.

HARP: the heating bill rebate, open now at $400

The programs above pay toward equipment. The Heating Assistance Rebate Program (HARP) is different: it helps with the heating bill itself, and it reaches more Nova Scotian households than any of them.

For 2026-27 it is $400 per household, and you can apply from 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027 (application page; provincial news release, 29 September 2026). Eligibility is based on 2025 net income.

How it has changed

A lot of what's written about HARP online still describes the 2024-25 program, which paid more and reached far more households. All figures are from the province's own releases and application page:

¹ As reported in the 29 September 2026 release. The 2025 release had anticipated about 72,000 households on a $32 million budget.

So the 2025 cut held: a third off the rebate and a $30,000 drop in the family income ceiling compared with two years ago, with fewer households reached than the province expected. Service Nova Scotia's minister says this year's focus is "to ensure that all those who may qualify apply." If you received it before and still qualify, the province says you should get a reminder by mail or email.

Do you qualify, and does it help with a heat pump?

For 2026-27, eligibility is a combined family net income up to $45,000 or a single-person net income up to $30,000 (2025 income), whether you rent or own, provided you pay directly for your heat; heat included in rent doesn't qualify. Recipients of the Guaranteed Income Supplement or income assistance also qualify. It applies across heating types, including oil, electric and wood — there are declaration forms for firewood and for renters paying their own electric heat.

Being straight about the limits of it: HARP does not pay for a heat pump, a furnace, or ductwork. It is bill relief, not a capital grant, and at $400 it is roughly a single fill of an oil tank. It sits alongside the equipment programs above rather than replacing them, and the households it reaches are often exactly the ones still on oil and least able to fund a conversion — which is the uncomfortable shape of the problem, not a criticism of the program.

If you are on a low income and heating with oil, the combination worth asking about is HARP for this winter's bills plus HomeWarming or the Moderate Income Rebate for the upgrade that lowers them permanently. Last season the province also ran a Home Energy Assistance Top-Up Fund for emergency heating situations, opening in January; we haven't confirmed it for 2026-27, so ask Service Nova Scotia.

The cost the rebate pages don't mention: your ductwork

Here's the part that catches people, and it's squarely our lane. Rebates are aimed at the heat pump and energy-efficiency upgrades, not the full cost of the ductwork a ducted system needs to actually perform. The new federal rebate is no exception so far: its announcement describes a rebate toward an eligible heat pump and says nothing about ducts. If your existing ducts need resizing, sealing, or added return air to handle a heat pump (and on older Halifax homes, they usually do), that air-side work often sits outside what a rebate covers.

The waiting time is useful. The National Heat Pump Rebate is built around a fast, pre-approved install once the portal opens. On a ducted system the slow part isn't the equipment; it's finding out the trunk is sized for a furnace, the return air is short, or the joints leak. That's an assessment you can have done now, so when your application is approved the ducts aren't what holds up the job. Getting ready for the National Heat Pump Rebate sets out what that check looks at and when to do it.

None of that is a reason to skip the ductwork. It's a reason to budget for it. A rebate that helps pay for the equipment does you no favours if the ducts can't move the air and you end up with cold rooms and high bills. The smart move is to price the whole project — equipment and the ductwork it needs — so there are no surprises after the rebate math is done.

How to make your install go smoothly

A few practical habits save money and headaches:

• For the National Heat Pump Rebate, get approval before you install once the portal opens. That's how the program is described, and retroactive eligibility is unconfirmed.
• Do the Home Energy Assessment first for Efficiency Nova Scotia rebates, before buying anything, so you don't lose eligibility on order-of-operations.
• Get income-tested approval before work starts — the Moderate Income Rebate, like OHPA before it, has to be approved first.
• Keep your paperwork — quotes, equipment specs, and (for an approved OHPA file) your oil receipts.
• Use eligible equipment and registered contractors where a program requires it.
• Scope the ductwork early, so the air-side cost is in your budget from the start.
• Confirm current amounts and deadlines — programs change mid-year, and funding runs out, as OHPA just demonstrated.

Sources

Because this is exactly the kind of information that shifts, don't take any figure here as final. The National Heat Pump Rebate and HARP sections were verified on 12 October 2026; the OHPA and Efficiency Nova Scotia program sections were last checked on 26 July 2026. All amounts are Canadian dollars, and every source is Canadian. Confirm current amounts, eligibility and status at the source:

• Prime Minister's Office: Prime Minister Carney announces landmark investment to retrofit one million homes, 8 October 2026. Source of the National Heat Pump Rebate name, the $10,000 / $2,000 amounts, up to 820,000 households, the online portal, approval within 24 hours, no audits, and combining with provincial programs.
• Government of Canada (Environment and Climate Change Canada): the same announcement on Canada.ca (eligible cold-climate air-source heat pumps on the Eligible Products List, one rebate per person, receipts after installation, payment within five days, the breakdown-replacement framing, and the savings figure, whose basis isn't given), the backgrounder ($2 billion over eight years), and the One million home energy retrofits page (announced as upcoming; sign-up for updates).
• Canadian Press, via CP24, 8 October 2026: the only source for the early 2027 launch target and the retroactivity remark, both attributed to unnamed officials. It's a news report, not a program document, and we've labelled it that way above.
• Efficiency Nova Scotia: Heat pump rebates ("limited information is available" on the federal rebate, checked 12 October 2026), the Oil to Heat Pump Affordability Program (closed to new NS applicants 2 July 2026), the Home Energy Assessment and the Moderate Income Rebate. Or call 1-877-999-6035.
• Natural Resources Canada: the Oil to Heat Pump Affordability program page (its 31 July 2026 deadline applies where you apply federally, not Nova Scotia) and the Canada Greener Homes Initiative.
• Province of Nova Scotia (HARP): the application page ($400; 1 October 2026 to 31 March 2027; 2025 income; $45,000 / $30,000 limits; heat included in rent excluded) and the news releases of 29 September 2026 (2026-27 amount; 2025-26 actuals of 54,000+ households and a $33.3 million budget), 26 September 2025 (the 2025-26 cut and its anticipated ~72,000 households / $32 million) and 23 September 2024 (the 2024-25 figures).

What we could not confirm

• The National Heat Pump Rebate's opening date, income test, fuel rules, Nova Scotia delivery, retroactivity, and whether ductwork or labour is covered. None of it is published yet. We'll update this page when the program rules are.
• A report that a federal Greener Homes stream returned to Nova Scotia in June 2026 for no-cost upgrades to low- and median-income households. We found it only in a local news report with no program link, so we haven't built anything on it. Ask Efficiency Nova Scotia; HomeWarming is the no-cost route we can confirm.

Where we fit in

We don't administer rebates — but we do the ductwork that decides whether your heat pump actually performs. We'll assess your ducts, tell you honestly what the air side needs, and coordinate with your licensed heat-pump installer on the equipment.

Whichever rebate you end up using, the ductwork question comes first. A rebate pays toward the equipment; it can't fix ducts that can't move the air a heat pump needs. Get that scoped while the federal program is still being set up, budget the whole project, and confirm current program details before you sign anything, because in 2026 they've been moving faster than the internet can keep up with.