Made in Europe or No Bonus: France Rewrites the Heat-Pump Grant Rules (1 September 2026)

This article is provided for general information only and does not constitute legal, tax or investment advice. Rules change and individual situations differ. Always confirm the current position with a qualified professional before acting.

If the oil or gas boiler in your French house is on its last winter, the grant that pays for its replacement changed shape on 1 September. The prime coup de pouce chauffage (the heating “helping hand” bonus) now goes to a heat pump only if the model sits on a State-approved list, and getting onto that list means being assembled in Europe. Service Public set out the new rules on 2 September. We have read them, the Ademe register behind them, and the four legal texts underneath. There is more in the small print than the headline: a quieter change to solar systems, and a rule about who counts as living in the house that matters a great deal to second-home owners.

What the coup de pouce actually is, and who pays it

Start with a distinction most English-language guides blur. The coup de pouce chauffage is not a State grant. It is paid by energy suppliers under the certificats d’économies d’énergie (CEE, energy-saving certificates) scheme, which obliges them to finance energy savings in French homes. Suppliers that sign the ministry’s coup de pouce charter pay you a bonus for scrapping a coal, oil or gas boiler in favour of a cleaner system, and the charter multiplies the certificates they earn for doing so. That is a separate pot from MaPrimeRénov’, the State’s own renovation grant, and the two can be combined.

The bonus is open to owners and to tenants, in a home built more than two years ago. A tenant needs the landlord’s permission for the works. There is no fixed amount: since January 2026 the old minimum primes have gone, and what you receive depends on the works, on your household income and on the supplier you sign with, so it pays to compare offers. The ministry publishes the list of charter signatories, and the free France Rénov’ advisers will check your eligibility and help you choose an installation before you commit to anything.

Three installations qualify when they replace a fossil-fuel boiler: an air-to-water heat pump (fiche BAR-TH-171), a water-to-water or ground-source heat pump (BAR-TH-172), and a système solaire combiné (BAR-TH-143), which pairs solar thermal panels with a storage tank to provide both heating and hot water. For the heat pumps, the bonus multiplies the base certificates by five. Air-to-air units, the wall-mounted kind most people picture, are not in the scheme at all.

The new rule: approved in Paris, assembled in Europe

Since 1 September 2026, a heat pump earns the bonus only if the model holds an agrément (State approval) “en matière de qualité et de résilience industrielle”, the government’s phrase for a quality-and-industrial-resilience test. The framework comes from décret n° 2026-413 and an arrêté of the same day, both dated 29 May 2026. Approval is granted by a joint order of the industry and energy ministers on the advice of the Ademe, the State’s ecological transition agency, and a model must satisfy two conditions at once.

First, a recognised third-party certification: Heat Pump Keymark, NF PAC, Eurovent Certified Performance or an equivalent issued by a body established in the European Economic Area. Second, manufacture in the EEA. For a monobloc unit, the final assembly of the refrigeration circuit must take place in the EEA. For a split unit, the kind with separate indoor and outdoor boxes, the final assembly of at least one sub-assembly of that circuit, so either the indoor or the outdoor unit, must happen there. The Ademe checks both, and can audit factories for two years after approval.

The first list of approved models was fixed by an arrêté of 2 July 2026, published in the Journal officiel on 5 July. We counted its annexes. Annex I approves 1,588 models from 27 brands, and the spread says a great deal about who builds in Europe.

Annex II is the more interesting one. It lists 204 models with a transitional approval, granted to manufacturers that do not yet meet the assembly test but have filed a credible investment plan to build or expand a European plant within two years. Mitsubishi Electric accounts for 146 of those 204, with Thermor, Atlantic, LG and Easypell making up the rest. A transitional approval lasts one year, can be renewed once, and every one of them lapses on 31 December 2028 whatever its start date. Brands that appear on neither annex in the July list include Samsung, Midea, Gree, Haier and Fujitsu, though the register changes every month and a brand absent today may be approved by the time you read this.

The date that decides everything: when you sign the quote

The approval is tested on the date d’engagement de l’opération, which in practice is the day you accept the installer’s quote. If the model is approved that day, the bonus is secured for that job even if the model later drops off the list. If it is not approved that day, no later approval rescues the operation. So the order of events matters: check the model on the Ademe register first, then sign. The approval number must then appear on the quote, on the invoice and on the attestation sur l’honneur (sworn statement) that you and the installer both sign, and the installer must hold the RGE qualification (reconnu garant de l’environnement, the environmental accreditation) for any of this to be payable.

The efficiency thresholds have not moved. The pump must show a seasonal space-heating efficiency of at least 111% for a medium or high-temperature application and at least 126% for low temperature, figures the installer takes from the product’s energy label and carries onto the invoice.

The rule second-home owners will not enjoy

Here is the line the headlines skip. Since 1 October 2025 the heat-pump bonus is reserved for dwellings occupied as a main residence, and since 1 January 2026 the same applies to solar systems and heat-network connections. Occupied by whom is the question, and the answer is the occupant, not the owner. A house you let to a tenant as their main home qualifies. A holiday home in the Dordogne that you use six weeks a year does not, however old its oil boiler. For a second home you can still claim the base CEE certificates, which are worth a fraction of the multiplied bonus, and you should still ask a France Rénov’ adviser what the local authority adds. The distinction runs through the whole French renovation-aid system, and it is the first thing to establish before you commission a quote.

Income matters too. Households under the ministry’s caps (for 2026, €22,259 for one person outside Île-de-France, €32,553 for two, rising by household size) count as ménages modestes and receive larger primes. The test uses the revenu fiscal de référence on a French tax notice. If you do not file a French income tax return you will, in practice, be treated as a standard household by the signatory.

Solar systems: a bigger bonus, on one condition

The same 1 September reform reached the système solaire combiné, and in two directions at once. The condition first: the bonus is now paid only if the works leave the home fully decarbonised, meaning that after installation the heating and hot-water system may not include or retain any equipment capable of burning fossil fuel. Keep the gas boiler as a backup and the bonus is gone. The reward second, and it is substantial: an arrêté of 17 August 2026 lifts the solar multiplier from two to five for modest households and four for everyone else, for operations committed before 1 January 2027 in a main residence. The same text creates new CEE bonuses for four other standardised operations, so the list of subsidised gestures is being redrawn, not shortened.

MaPrimeRénov’ moved on the same day. From 1 September its single-measure route no longer funds wood heating, hot-water heat pumps, ventilation, solar thermal or insulation on their own, and a full-scale renovation of a house loses the grant if a gas heater survives the works. Air-to-water and ground-source heat pumps stay eligible, now on condition that the unit carries no fossil-fuel backup. Service Public has the detail. Note that MaPrimeRénov’ does not, for now, require the Ademe approval: that condition belongs to the CEE bonus, although the government has said it intends to steer both schemes towards European-built pumps.

Why a landlord should care beyond the grant

A heat pump does two things to a French rental at once. It cuts the bill the tenant pays, and it rewrites the DPE, the energy label that decides whether you may let the property at all. From January 2027 the DPE converts electricity into primary energy at a kinder 1.7 coefficient, so an electrically heated home climbs the scale on paper before a single panel of insulation goes in, and a heat pump compounds that arithmetic. For a landlord staring at an F or G, the combination of the coup de pouce, the DPE recalculation and the letting bans that follow the label makes the boiler swap a rental-viability decision rather than a plumbing one. Owners who manage from abroad will find the practical side, from finding RGE installers to supervising works remotely, in our remote-management guide.

FAQ: the heat-pump bonus after 1 September 2026

I accepted a quote in August for a model that is not on the list. Do I lose the bonus?

No. The approval condition applies to operations committed from 1 September 2026, and the commitment date is the day you accepted the quote. An August acceptance is judged under the earlier rules.

Can I get the coup de pouce for my French second home?

Not the multiplied bonus. Since 1 October 2025 the heat-pump bonus is reserved for dwellings occupied as a main residence, by an owner or a tenant. A second home can still generate the base energy-saving certificates, which are worth much less.

Does the approval rule apply to air-to-air heat pumps?

No. The approval scheme and the bonus cover individual air-to-water, water-to-water and ground-source heat pumps only. Air-to-air units are outside both.

Where do I check whether a model is approved?

On the Ademe register at bonus-pac.ademe.fr, searchable by brand, range and model, and updated monthly. The legally binding list is the arrêté of 2 July 2026 as amended. Ask the installer to print the approval number on the quote.

How much is the prime worth?

There is no fixed figure since January 2026. The bonus multiplies the standard certificates for the operation by five, and each charter signatory converts that into a cash prime that varies with your income band and its own commercial terms. The ministry’s FAQ uses €4,500 for an air-to-water heat pump as an illustration, so compare several offers.