Ontario renovation rebates in 2026: what is open, what closed, and what the blogs get wrong

The programme that is actually open: Home Renovation Savings

Ontario's Home Renovation Savings Program launched on January 28, 2025, co-delivered by the IESO through its Save on Energy brand and by Enbridge Gas. It is the main live rebate for Ontario homeowners doing envelope and mechanical work, and it runs on two separate paths.

Path 1: bundled (home energy assessment plus two or more upgrades)

• Home energy assessment: $600
• Insulation: up to $7,700
• Windows and doors: $100 per rough opening
• Air sealing: up to $250
• ENERGY STAR heat pump water heater: $500

Path 2: single upgrade (no assessment required)

• Cold climate air source heat pump: up to $7,500
• Ground source heat pump: up to $12,000
• Solar panels and battery storage: up to $10,000
• Attic insulation: up to $1,250
• Smart thermostat: up to $100
• Appliances: up to $200

Heat pump amounts are determined by the size of the unit installed, and the rebate depends heavily on what you heat with today: homes on natural gas receive materially less than homes heated by electricity, oil, propane or wood. Confirm your own numbers on the official hub, homerenovationsavings.ca, before you budget around them.

"Rebates change the order of a renovation. If you are opening walls anyway, insulating while they are open and claiming it is free money you will never get again once the drywall is up. I ask about the rebate list before we finalize scope, not after."

Mitch Fraser, owner, Ontario Contracting Co.

What is closed, despite what the blogs say

This is where most Ontario rebate articles are simply wrong, and being wrong here costs people real planning time:

• The Canada Greener Homes Grant is closed. Natural Resources Canada states it plainly. Ontario applications closed on February 5, 2024, and the final deadline for post-retrofit EnerGuide evaluations was December 1, 2025.
• The Canada Greener Homes Loan is closed to new applications, with funding fully committed. Homeowners already approved are unaffected and can still complete retrofits and submit funding requests.
• The federal Oil to Heat Pump Affordability program does not cover Ontario in its direct federal stream. NRCan lists Alberta, Manitoba, Northwest Territories, Quebec and Saskatchewan, and directs Ontario applicants to provincial programmes. Any article telling you to stack a $10,000 federal OHPA grant on top of Ontario's rebate for roughly $22,000 is describing something you cannot do in this province.

The scam warning on the government's own rebate page

The official Home Renovation Savings hub carries an explicit warning that scammers impersonate authorised service organisations, and tells homeowners to verify contractor credentials. That is not a coincidence: rebate programmes attract door-knockers the way storms do. The verification routine that defeats them is in our guide to checking a contractor through public registries, and the wider pattern is catalogued in the documented Ontario scam playbook.

Municipal money, on top

Local programmes stack with the provincial rebates. Brantford runs a basement flooding grant paying 80 percent to $5,000, and Hamilton runs both the S3P plumbing grant and an ADU grant worth up to $40,000. Federal renovation tax credits, which are claimed at tax time rather than as rebates, are covered separately in our guide to the federal renovation tax credits.