Heat Pump Rebates and HARP in Nova Scotia: What's Left in 2026

If you've been putting off a heat pump because you were waiting on a rebate, 2026 is the year the landscape shifted out from under that plan. The big stackable federal grants are gone, and as of July 2, 2026 the province's most generous remaining program — Oil to Heat Pump Affordability — stopped taking new Nova Scotia applications. Here's an honest map of what's actually left, and — because it's our trade — the ductwork cost the rebate pages don't mention.

A note before the numbers: rebate amounts, deadlines, and funding availability change constantly, and 2026 has moved faster than most years. Details below were last verified on August 31, 2026 against the official program pages linked throughout, and the HARP figures against the Province of Nova Scotia's own news releases. Treat them as a starting point and confirm current status with Efficiency Nova Scotia before you plan around them.

What changed in 2026

The headline is 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. 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 If a page tells you a Nova Scotian still has until July 31, it's out of date.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 actually still open: the Home Energy Assessment path

With OHPA closed, 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 — where the real money is now

If your household income qualifies, this is where the remaining leverage sits.

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 still available to most homeowners. 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, reopening 1 October 2026

The programs above pay toward equipment. The Heating Assistance Rebate Program (HARP) is different: it helps with the heating bill itself, and it is the one that reaches the most Nova Scotian households by a wide margin.

It runs on a season, not a rolling basis. The province's own program page currently states that the 1 October 2025 to 31 March 2026 period has ended and that "New applications may be submitted starting on 1 October 2026." So if you are reading this before October, there is nothing to apply for yet — and if you are reading it after, the deadline is 31 March.

The part most pages still have wrong

A lot of what is written about HARP online describes the 2024-25 program. It changed substantially for 2025-26, and not in the homeowner's favour. Both sets of figures come from the province's own news releases:

That is a third off the rebate and a $30,000 drop in the family income ceiling in a single year. Service Nova Scotia's minister framed the change as a focus "on helping the most vulnerable citizens of our province" — that is the government's characterisation, and worth reading alongside the numbers rather than instead of them.

The 2026-27 amount has not been announced. The program page gives the opening date and nothing else; the figures above are the most recent confirmed season. Historically the announcement comes in late September, so check on or around 1 October rather than planning against last year's number.

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

For 2025-26, eligibility was a combined family net income up to $45,000 or a single-person net income up to $30,000, whether you rent or own, provided you pay for heat. Recipients of the Guaranteed Income Supplement or income assistance also qualified. 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. There is also a Home Energy Assistance Top-Up Fund for emergency heating situations, which the province says opens in January.

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. 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.

That's not a reason to skip it — 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:

• Do the Home Energy Assessment first, 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.

Always check the current details

Because this is exactly the kind of information that shifts — and because a lot of pages still online have the OHPA deadline wrong — don't take any figure here as final. Everything above was last verified August 31, 2026 (the OHPA and Efficiency Nova Scotia sections were last checked July 26, 2026; the HARP section and its figures were verified against the provincial pages on August 31, 2026). Confirm current amounts, eligibility, and status directly at the source:

• Efficiency Nova Scotia — Oil to Heat Pump Affordability Program (closed to new NS applicants July 2, 2026), the Home Energy Assessment, and the Moderate Income Rebate. Or call them at 1-877-999-6035.
• Natural Resources Canada — the Oil to Heat Pump Affordability program page (note: its July 31, 2026 deadline applies to provinces where you apply federally, not Nova Scotia) and the Canada Greener Homes Initiative.
• Heating Assistance Rebate Program (HARP) — the Province of Nova Scotia's HARP program page, which carries the 1 October 2026 reopening date, and the application page. The 2025-26 figures ($400 rebate; $45,000 family / $30,000 single net income; ~72,000 households; $32 million budget) are from the province's news release Heating Assistance Rebate Program Opens October 1, 26 September 2025. The 2024-25 comparison figures ($600 rebate; $75,000 / $55,000 limits; 118,287 recipients; over $71 million) come from the equivalent 23 September 2024 release and the 2025 release's own Quick Facts. All amounts are Canadian dollars. Note the live program pages carry no amount or income figures while the program is closed between seasons, which is why the sourcing here is to the news releases.

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.

With OHPA closed, the rebate math is tighter than it was, which makes the ductwork question more important, not less. There's less program money to absorb a system that underperforms — so it's worth knowing before you commit whether your ducts can actually move the air a heat pump needs. Get that scoped early, budget the whole project, and confirm current program details with Efficiency Nova Scotia before you sign anything, because in 2026 they've been moving faster than the internet can keep up with.