When the Trump administration ended the $2,000 federal tax credit for heat pumps on December 31, 2025, many observers expected a sharp drop in sales, the kind of cliff that hit electric vehicles when their $7,500 tax credit expired three months earlier. EV sales plummeted before beginning a slow recovery.
That is not what happened with heat pumps.
In the first quarter of 2026, US heat pump shipments were flat from December to January and then rose gradually through the spring, a stronger seasonal uptick than in previous years. Heat pumps outsold natural-gas furnaces by 32% in Q1 2026, continuing a trend that has now held for four consecutive years. Over the past 15 years, heat pump sales in the US have doubled.
“It appears that the U.S. market for heat pumps is strong enough that it does not depend on tax credits,” Lucas Davis, an energy economist at UC Berkeley, told MIT Technology Review in a new analysis.
A technology that reached escape velocity
The contrast with EVs is instructive. When the $7,500 EV tax credit ended in September 2025, sales fell off a cliff before beginning a slow normalization. Heat pumps, by contrast, barely broke stride.
The difference, analysts say, reflects the technology’s intrinsic value proposition. Heat pumps use electricity to move heat rather than generate it by burning fuel, a process that is two to four times more efficient than even the best gas furnace. The lower operating costs alone can justify the upfront investment, even without a subsidy.
“The tax credit was not the primary driver of adoption,” Casey Crownhart reports for MIT Technology Review. The heat pump market appears to have crossed a threshold where the technology sells itself.
A global trend
The US pattern mirrors broader global adoption. The International Energy Agency reports that China and Germany are also seeing strong heat pump growth, driven by a combination of regulation, rising gas prices, and growing consumer awareness.
In the US, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 had included the $2,000 tax credit as part of a broader push to electrify buildings. Buildings account for roughly 13% of US greenhouse gas emissions directly (and more when indirect electricity emissions are included), making heat pump adoption a significant lever for decarbonization.
What the data shows
US heat pump shipments have doubled over the past 15 years. They have outsold gas furnaces every year since 2022. The post-credit plateau and gradual rise is the strongest signal yet that the technology is no longer dependent on federal incentives.
“There’s rarely a straight path to adoption for new technology,” Crownhart notes, but heat pumps appear to be overcoming their remaining roadblocks: upfront cost, installer availability, and cold-weather performance (modern cold-climate heat pumps maintain efficiency well below freezing).
MIT Technology Review had named heat pumps a breakthrough technology in 2024, a designation that now looks prescient. The technology’s resilience to the withdrawal of federal support suggests the US heat pump transition is no longer a policy-driven experiment, it is a market-driven reality.
Sources:
1. Crownhart, C. “Why heat pumps are still so hot in the US.” MIT Technology Review (16 July 2026). https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/07/16/1140505/heat-pump-sales-us/
2. Davis, L. “Will U.S. Households Still Buy Heat Pumps Without a Tax Credit?” Energy Institute at Haas blog (13 July 2026).
3. IEA, “Global Energy Review 2026: Technology — Heat Pumps.”