On May 29, 2026, the Department of Energy changed what the federal home electrification rebate pays for. There was no press conference. The change arrived as two documents, Program Notice 26-1 and Program Notice 26-2, and the second one removed the most common reason American homeowners were applying in the first place.
If you heat with gas, oil, or propane and you were planning to use the rebate to install a heat pump, that project is being phased out of the program. The language in Program Notice 26-2 is direct. The notice describes “Removing program allowances for upgrades for fuel-switching (i.e. replacement of non-electric appliances) and instead allowing rebates for upgrading HVAC and appliances only from existing electric equipment to more efficient electric equipment.”
The dollar figures did not shrink. The statute still authorizes up to $8,000 for a heat pump and up to $14,000 in total. What changed is who the money is for. It is now for households that already heat with electricity.
Because DOE gave states three months to comply, several states have already published hard cutoff dates. Georgia set August 10. Arizona set August 1. Both are inside the next two weeks.
Last verified against official sources: July 29, 2026. Nothing here is tax or legal advice. It is a record of what the primary documents say on the date we read them.
What the two notices actually changed
Both notices carry an effective date of May 29, 2026. Program Notice 26-1 governs the HOMES rebate. Program Notice 26-2 governs the program the statute calls High-Efficiency Electric Home Rebates, which DOE and most states have been calling HEAR, HEEHR, or HEEHRA.
Notice 26-2 supersedes specific parts of three earlier documents: the Administrative and Legal Requirements Document version 2.1 issued December 16, 2024, the Program Requirements and Application Instructions version 2.1 issued the same day, and the Data and Tools Requirements Guide version 2.0 issued January 7, 2025. Everything else survives. The notice states that “All other program requirements for the HEEHR Program awards remain in effect with the exception of those identified in this notice.”
The fuel-switching removal is the headline, but it is not the only change. Notice 26-2 also imposes a sequencing rule, “Requiring that homes utilize rebates for insulation and air sealing prior to installing heating and cooling upgrades, unless they are already appropriately insulated and sealed to a DOE approved, state-specified level, to ensure upgrades do not increase consumer energy costs.” It removes the Justice40 community benefits requirement and the 40 percent low-income funding reservation. It replaces the Consumer Protection Plan with a Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Mitigation Plan, and eliminates internal review plans, consumer satisfaction surveys, and dispute resolution procedures.
Some of the changes cut the homeowner’s way. Point-of-sale pathways expand to retail, e-commerce, direct-to-consumer, and marketplace channels. Mail-in rebates are permitted. Do-it-yourself purchases and non-contractor installation are allowed for everything except HVAC. Rebates can now cover shipping and contractor travel costs in underserved regions.
Notice 26-1 does something different to HOMES. It makes the ENERGY STAR requirement optional, eliminates the post-install geotagged photo requirement, drops onsite inspections and commissioning testing, removes the same 40 percent low-income reservation, and allows rebate funds to cover shipping, contractor travel, warranties, accessories, and state and local taxes.
The distinction that matters most: HOMES was never a fuel-switching program. It pays on modeled or measured whole-home energy reduction, not on which fuel you burn, so the electric-only rule does not touch it. For a gas-heated home in a state with a live HOMES program, that is now the remaining federal path. Under 42 U.S.C. 18795, a low- or moderate-income household hitting 35 percent modeled savings can receive the lesser of “$8,000” or 80 percent of project cost.
The question the notice does not answer
Notice 26-2 contains a second sentence that sits awkwardly next to the first. It describes “Allowing dwellings to retain existing fossil-fuel HVAC systems when installing a heat pump, even if the heat pump will not become the primary source of heating and cooling.”
So the gas furnace may stay. But if the furnace stays and a heat pump goes in beside it, has any non-electric appliance been replaced? The notice never defines fuel-switching. It describes it once, parenthetically, as “replacement of non-electric appliances,” and it does not say whether existing electric resistance heat or an existing heat pump is a precondition for claiming the heat pump rebate.
We are not going to guess at the answer, so we looked at what states are doing. Georgia’s contractor instruction treats projects in gas-heated homes as fuel switching and gives them a deadline. That is one state’s reading, published by that state. Whether the other states land in the same place is not yet on the record.
The deadlines states have already published
These are the cutoffs we could verify from official state sources on July 29, 2026.
- Georgia. The state rebate site posted a HEAR Program Update dated May 29, 2026, requiring implementation by August 31, 2026. Contractors must submit fuel-switching scopes of work by “10:00 am ET on August 10, 2026.” After that, the update says, “fuel switching projects will no longer be accepted, and only electric-to-higher-efficiency electric upgrades will be eligible.”
- Arizona. Efficiency Arizona, run by the Governor’s Office of Resiliency, is telling residents “Arizonans encouraged to apply by August 1, 2026 to access current rebate guidelines.”
- California. The California Energy Commission page had not addressed the May 2026 notices when we read it. For single-family applicants the binding constraint is different anyway: “As of February 24, 2026, HEEHRA rebates for single-family home retrofits are fully reserved statewide.” The page adds that “HEEHRA rebates are still available statewide for multifamily homes” and that “HOMES rebates are not yet available.”
- New York. NYSERDA’s Inflation Reduction Act page describes EmPower+ and the Appliance Upgrade Program and made no reference to the May 2026 notices when we checked.
One caution about the three-month clock. DOE dates both notices May 2026 with an effective date of May 29, 2026, which puts the conformance deadline for launched programs at the end of August. Georgia has published August 31. But states are setting their own application cutoffs ahead of that federal date, and Arizona’s is a full month earlier. We did not find a DOE document naming one nationwide consumer deadline. The only safe assumption is that your state’s cutoff is earlier than the federal one, not later.
One more line from the notice is worth knowing if you are already in the queue: “Any existing, approved rebate reservations under the previous program guidance are allowed to be executed, but no new rebate reservations are allowed or can be approved for projects that do not conform to the new program strategy.” An approved reservation is the thing that protects you. An intention is not.
Programs that have not launched get no transition at all. The notice requires that grantee programs which have not yet launched “are required to align with new program requirements prior to launching.” If your state is still in development, it will open under the new rules.
Meanwhile, Congress is trying to end the program outright
There is a second track, and most coverage treats it as the main one. It is not, but it is real.
The House passed H.R. 4758, the Homeowner Energy Freedom Act, on February 25, 2026. The Clerk of the House recorded Roll Call 78 at 210 yea, 199 nay, 1 present, 22 not voting, with Republicans at 210 to 1 and Democrats at 0 to 198. A motion to recommit failed 198 to 208 the same day. The committee votes ran the same way: 16 to 14 in subcommittee on November 19, 2025, and 25 to 21 in full committee on December 3, 2025.
The committee report puts both cases on the record. The majority wrote that “Inserting taxpayer subsidies into this system deprives the public of the beneficial forces of the free market.” The minority wrote that “The programs being repealed by H.R. 4758 are not mandates. They are optional programs that increase access to efficient appliances.”
What the bill would and would not do
The bill repeals three sections of Public Law 117-169: section 50122, the electrification rebate; section 50123, the state-based contractor training grants; and section 50131, assistance for building energy code adoption. It does not repeal section 50121. HOMES survives the bill entirely. The only thing the bill does to 50121 is a conforming amendment striking a cross-reference in subsection (c)(7).
The rescission clause is narrower than the headlines suggest. It reads that “The unobligated balances of any amounts made available under each of sections 50122 and 50131 … are rescinded.” Unobligated. Money DOE has already committed to a state under a signed award is not reached by that sentence.
The Congressional Budget Office scored the bill on January 15, 2026 and put the remainder small. CBO wrote that it “estimates that about $300 million in unobligated balances will be available for the other two programs at the time of enactment,” and noted that section 50123’s balance had already been rescinded by the 2025 reconciliation act. Set that against the statutory appropriations: 42 U.S.C. 18795a provides “$4,275,000,000, to remain available through September 30, 2031” for state electrification programs plus “$225,000,000” for Indian Tribes, and 42 U.S.C. 18795 provides “$4,300,000,000, to remain available through September 30, 2031” for HOMES. CBO also concluded the bill would not change direct spending across 2026 through 2035, because it expects those balances would not be spent under current law regardless.
Where the bill actually sits
It went to the Senate the day it passed. The Government Publishing Office print of the Referred in Senate version is dated February 25, 2026 and carries the line “Received; read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.”
It has not moved since. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a business meeting on July 16, 2026 to consider nominations and pending legislation. Nineteen measures were on that agenda. H.R. 4758 was not one of them.
There is also a Senate companion that almost no one mentions. S. 333, also called the Homeowner Energy Freedom Act, was introduced by Senator Tim Sheehy and referred to the same committee on January 30, 2025, with six cosponsors: Barrasso, Fischer, Lankford, Marshall, Ricketts, and Schmitt. Eighteen months later it has had no committee action either.
The arithmetic is part of the explanation. The Senate is 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats, and 2 Independents. A freestanding bill needs 60 votes to end debate, and the House tally showed no Democratic support at all to build from. That does not make repeal impossible. A provision like this can ride a reconciliation bill, where 51 is enough, and section 50123’s balance was in fact taken that way in 2025. But as a standalone measure the votes are not visibly there, and five months of committee silence is consistent with that.
We are not predicting an outcome. We are reporting the record: passed the House, referred to committee, no action, no scheduled action.
Which of the two actually affects your project
This is the part that gets inverted almost everywhere. The bill is the dramatic story. The notice is the one that changes what you can get.
The bill has not become law, has no scheduled Senate action, and even if enacted would rescind only unobligated money, roughly $300 million by CBO’s estimate, out of $8.8 billion appropriated across the two rebate programs. Every dollar already obligated to your state stays obligated.
The notice is already in effect and has been since May 29. Your state is required to conform within three months. Several states have published their cutoffs. The earliest one we found is days away.
If you heat with gas and you have been waiting for the right moment, the deadline that governs you was set by a document nobody mailed you.
What to do in the next ten minutes
- Open your state energy office rebate page, not a national one. The DOE program page says only that rebates are “now available in select states” and names no dates. Every hard deadline we found was published by a state.
- Look for the words fuel switching, gas to electric, or electric-to-electric. If your state has posted a cutoff, it will be on that page.
- Find out what the deadline attaches to. Georgia’s attaches to a contractor-submitted scope of work. Arizona’s attaches to your application. Neither requires the equipment to be installed by that date, but both require paperwork to be in.
- If your state has not launched yet, assume it will launch under the new rules. There is no grandfathering for a program that was never open.
- If you heat with gas, ask whether your state runs HOMES. It pays on whole-home energy reduction rather than on fuel type, and the electric-only rule does not apply to it.
What we could not verify, stated plainly
- How much of the $4,275,000,000 electrification appropriation DOE has actually obligated to states. There is no public obligation ledger. The DOE program page carries a modified date of July 8, 2026 and publishes no award or obligation totals. CBO’s roughly $300 million is the only public anchor, and CBO does not break it out between section 50122 and section 50131.
- Whether an additive heat pump in a gas-heated home, with the furnace retained, is eligible under Notice 26-2. The notice permits retaining fossil-fuel HVAC and separately bars fuel switching, and does not reconcile the two. Georgia’s guidance implies such projects are treated as fuel switching. We found no DOE statement either way.
- What all fifty states are doing. We verified Georgia and Arizona from official state sources and checked California and New York, whose pages had not addressed the notices as of July 29, 2026. We have not audited the rest.
- Whether the Senate will act on H.R. 4758 or S. 333. Neither has had committee action and we found no scheduled markup for either.
- Whether any legal challenge to the notices would succeed. Advocacy groups have argued the changes conflict with the authorizing statute. We are not in a position to assess that, and there is no ruling to report.
Where to go next on this site
- Home Energy Rebates by State: Who Is Actually Paying in 2026 for which states have live programs at all.
- Is the $8,000 Heat Pump Rebate Real? What Each State Actually Publishes for the per-state amounts.
- Do You Actually Qualify? The Income Rules Behind the $14,000 Home Energy Rebate for the income tiers.
- The Heat Pump Tax Credit Ended. The Rebate Did Not. for why the federal tax credit is a separate question from all of this.
Sources for every figure above: DOE Program Notice 26-1, DOE Program Notice 26-2, DOE Home Energy Rebates, Georgia HEAR Program Update, Efficiency Arizona, California Energy Commission, H.R. 4758 as referred to the Senate, House Roll Call 78, House Report 119-484, CBO cost estimate for H.R. 4758, 42 U.S.C. 18795, and 42 U.S.C. 18795a.
Updated July 29, 2026: we opened the official rebate page for twenty-four states to see which ones have told homeowners that the rule changed. Only six mention it, and six more are open and still publishing the old rule.