Heat Pump Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-author: Aidan Jad (EV & Clean Energy) | Last updated: September 17, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
Heat pumps sold for buildings worldwide added 108 GW of capacity in 2025, according to the IEA’s Heat Pump Monitor 2026, after global unit sales slipped about 2%. The market split in two: Europe rebounded 13% to 2.9 million units, while US shipments fell before recovering 5.8% through July 2026.
Quick Answer
Global heat pump sales stabilised in 2025 at 108 GW for buildings (IEA). Europe sold 2.9 million units across 21 countries, lifting installed stock to 29.3 million (EHPA). In Germany, Axis Intelligence Research calculates that heat pumps now sell 0.91 units for every non-heat-pump heating system, up from 0.37 in 2024. In the United States the equivalent ratio is about 1.1.
Key Findings
- Axis Intelligence Research’s Heat Pump Replacement Ratio (HPRR) for Germany jumped from 0.37 in 2024 to 0.91 in 2025, based on BDH/BWP sales statistics.
- Axis Intelligence Research finds that Germany’s sales of non-heat-pump heating systems fell 36.9% in 2025, from 519,500 to 328,000 units, while heat pump sales rose 55%.
- According to the European Heat Pump Association, 2.9 million heat pumps were sold in 21 European countries in 2025, up 13%, bringing installed stock to 29.3 million.
- US air-source heat pump shipments reached 2.57 million units in January–July 2026, up 5.8% year over year, according to AHRI data.
- Axis Intelligence Research estimates that global heat pump factories ran at roughly 74% of capacity, comparing the IEA’s 108 GW of 2025 buildings sales with 145 GW of 2024 manufacturing capacity.
How Many Heat Pumps Are Sold Worldwide Each Year?
The IEA Heat Pump Monitor 2026, published in July 2026, puts 2025 global heat pump sales for buildings at 108 GW. The agency reports sales in capacity rather than units because a Chinese reversible room unit, a Japanese Eco Cute water heater and a German monobloc air-to-water system are not comparable boxes.
The trend line matters more than the headline. According to the IEA, building heat pump sales peaked in 2022, slowed through 2023–24, and stabilised in 2025, with that stabilisation holding into the first quarter of 2026. The IEA Global Energy Review 2026 quantifies 2025 as a decline of about 2%.
Heat pump sales change by major market, 2025
| Market | 2025 sales change | Direction | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| World | about −2% | Down | IEA Global Energy Review 2026 |
| Europe | +11% (IEA) / +13% (EHPA, 21 countries) | Up | IEA; EHPA |
| United States | around −13% | Down | IEA Global Energy Review 2026 |
| China | broadly stable | Flat | IEA Global Energy Review 2026 |
| Japan | similar to 2024 | Flat | IEA Global Energy Review 2026 |
| Germany | +55% (BWP) / +50% (EHPA) | Up | BWP; EHPA |
Where the market sits by segment
The IEA identifies four markets that carry global deployment, each for a different reason: the United States holds the largest installed stock, China records the highest annual sales, Europe is the significant market for hydronic (water-based) systems, and Japan reaches high penetration through reversible air conditioning.
Aidan Jad’s read: A flat global number hides a market running two different engines. In China, Japan and the US South, the heat pump is a cooling appliance that also heats — sales track air-conditioner replacement cycles and new housing starts. In Germany, France and Poland, it is a boiler replacement, and sales track the electricity-to-gas price ratio and whatever the subsidy desk is doing that quarter. Aggregate them and you get “stabilised.” Separate them and you get one market waiting on housing and refrigerant supply, and another sprinting away from gas.
Are Heat Pumps Replacing Gas Boilers and Furnaces? The Axis Heat Pump Replacement Ratio (HPRR)
Market share tells you what fraction of a market heat pumps hold. It does not tell you how fast the competing installed base is being retired, because share can rise simply when the whole heating market shrinks. So Axis Intelligence Research built a sharper instrument.
The Heat Pump Replacement Ratio (HPRR) measures how many heat pumps are sold for every competing primary heating system sold in the same market and year.
HPRR = heat pump sales ÷ sales of non-heat-pump primary heating systems
- HPRR below 1.0: combustion and other heating systems still outsell heat pumps.
- HPRR = 1.0: parity — every fossil unit sold is matched by a heat pump.
- HPRR above 1.0: heat pumps are being installed faster than the systems they replace.
An HPRR reading is only published where one statistical body counts both numerator and denominator on the same basis, so the ratio compares like with like.
HPRR by market, 2025
| Market | Heat pumps sold | Competing systems sold | HPRR | Source of inputs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 3.6 million (air-source shipments) | 3.2 million (gas furnaces) | about 1.1 | AHRI shipment data, as compiled by RMI |
| Germany | 299,000 (hydronic heating heat pumps) | 328,000 (all other heat generators) | 0.91 | BDH/BWP Branchenstudie 2026 |
Axis Intelligence Research calculation. US: 3.6M ÷ 3.2M = 1.125; both inputs are rounded to 0.1 million, so the reading is reported as about 1.1. Germany: 627,000 total heat generators − 299,000 heat pumps = 328,000; 299,000 ÷ 328,000 = 0.91.
Germany’s HPRR, 2016–2025
| Year | Heat pump sales | Total heat generator market | Non-heat-pump systems | HPRR | Heat pump share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 66,600 | 693,500 | 626,900 | 0.11 | 9.6% |
| 2017 | 77,900 | 712,000 | 634,100 | 0.12 | 10.9% |
| 2018 | 84,100 | 732,000 | 647,900 | 0.13 | 11.5% |
| 2019 | 86,200 | 748,000 | 661,800 | 0.13 | 11.5% |
| 2020 | 120,000 | 842,000 | 722,000 | 0.17 | 14.3% |
| 2021 | 154,100 | 929,000 | 774,900 | 0.20 | 16.6% |
| 2022 | 235,600 | 980,000 | 744,400 | 0.32 | 24.0% |
| 2023 | 355,600 | 1,308,500 | 952,900 | 0.37 | 27.2% |
| 2024 | 193,000 | 712,500 | 519,500 | 0.37 | 27.1% |
| 2025 | 299,000 | 627,000 | 328,000 | 0.91 | 47.7% |
Source: BDH/BWP sales statistics, Table 2 of the BWP Branchenstudie 2026. HPRR and share computed by Axis Intelligence Research; BWP’s own table rounds share to whole numbers (48% for 2025).
Look at 2023 and 2024. Heat pump sales collapsed 46%, yet Germany’s HPRR held at 0.37 — because the boiler market fell just as hard. The German heating market did not pick heat pumps in 2024; it froze. What changed in 2025 is that the thaw went almost entirely one way: heat pumps recovered by 106,000 units while the rest of the heating market lost another 191,500.
Aidan Jad’s read: This is the number the “heat pump share hits 48%” headlines skip. Share doubled partly because the denominator shrank to a two-decade low — BWP says 627,000 units is the weakest heating market in 20 years. That cuts both ways. It means the ratio is real: households replacing a dead boiler chose a heat pump nearly as often as not. It also means the absolute volume is still well short of the 500,000-a-year mark that BWP’s target scenario aims to reach. A high ratio in a stalled market is a signal of direction, not arrival.
Heat Pump Sales in Europe: 2025 Results and 2026 Momentum
The European Heat Pump Association’s 2026 market report release counts 2.9 million heat pumps sold in 2025 across 21 European countries, a 13% increase, with total stock reaching 29.3 million. Including manufacturer estimates for nine additional countries, EHPA puts 2025 sales at 3.1 million, though those countries are excluded from its time-series comparisons.
Largest European heat pump markets, 2025
| Country | 2025 metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| France | Units sold | 528,000 | EHPA |
| Italy | Units sold | 423,000 | EHPA |
| Germany | Hydronic heating heat pumps sold | 299,000 | BWP |
| Belgium | Units sold | 111,000 | EHPA (preliminary) |
| Lithuania | Sales per 1,000 households | 46 | EHPA |
| Norway | Sales per 1,000 households | 43 | EHPA |
| Norway | Installed stock per 1,000 households | 650 | EHPA |
| France | Installed stock | about 7 million | EHPA |
Note: EHPA and BWP use different product scopes for Germany. EHPA reports German growth of 50%; BWP, counting hydronic heating units only, reports 55%.
Did the 2026 energy shock lift heat pump sales?
Yes, on the first-quarter evidence. According to EHPA’s May 2026 release, residential heat pump sales across 11 European countries reached around 575,000 units in January–March 2026, up 17% from 494,000. France, Germany and Poland averaged 25% growth, a period that included Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz on March 2, 2026. Austria went the other way, falling 30% in the absence of government subsidies.
That Austrian number is the control group. Same gas price shock, no subsidy, and sales dropped by nearly a third.
Why European figures don’t agree
Three respected bodies publish three different 2025 growth rates for Europe, and none of them is wrong:
| Publisher | Scope | 2025 growth |
|---|---|---|
| EHPA (preliminary, March 2026) | 16 countries, residential | +10% (2.38M → 2.62M) |
| IEA Global Energy Review 2026 | Europe, IEA-defined | +11% |
| EHPA (market report, June 2026) | 21 countries, all heat pumps | +13% (2.9M) |
Axis Intelligence Research does not merge these into a single European figure: the country lists and product definitions differ. The IEA itself flags this problem, calling for international harmonisation of heat pump data reporting because classifications differ greatly between regions.
US Heat Pump Shipments: The A2L Year and the 2026 Rebound
US heat pump data comes from the Air-Conditioning, Heating, & Refrigeration Institute’s monthly shipment reports, which count units when ownership transfers from manufacturer to buyer.
2025 was a hard year. The IEA attributes the roughly 13% US sales decline to three forces: the rule that heat pumps manufactured from 2025 must use A2L refrigerants (which pulled R-410A inventory into 2024), refrigerant shortages, and slower new housing construction. Even so, the IEA notes US heat pumps outsold gas furnaces for the fourth straight year. RMI’s tracker of AHRI data puts 2025 volumes at 3.6 million heat pumps against 3.2 million gas furnaces.
US air-source heat pump shipments, July 2026 vs July 2025
| Metric | July 2025 | July 2026 | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heat pump shipments, month | 351,913 | 413,679 | +17.6% | AHRI data, reported by ACHR News |
| Heat pump shipments, year to date | 2.43 million | 2.57 million | +5.8% | AHRI data, reported by ACHR News |
| Central AC shipments, year to date | — | 3.06 million | — | AHRI data, reported by ACHR News |
| Heat pump share of combined AC + heat pump shipments, month | — | 45.1% | — | AHRI data, reported by ACHR News |
| Heat pump share of combined shipments, year to date | — | 45.6% | — | Axis Intelligence Research calculation (2.57M ÷ 5.63M) |
July 2026 was the second-highest July for heat pump shipments since AHRI’s series began in 2010, behind only July 2024’s 430,204 units, according to ACHR News’ analysis of the release. July heat pump shipments are up 172.7% from 151,696 units in July 2010.
The air-conditioner replacement pathway
The IEA’s most consequential US observation is structural: over 20% of US households already rely on a heat pump for space heating, around 90% use air conditioning, and around two-thirds of homes already have the enabling conditions to swap a cooling-only AC for a reversible heat pump at end of life. RMI reports heat pumps made up 47% of US cooling equipment sales in 2025.
Aidan Jad’s read: The US heat pump market is not a heating decision, it’s a condenser swap. When a 15-year-old AC dies in Georgia, the contractor quotes a like-for-like replacement, and for a few hundred dollars more the outdoor unit can run in reverse. That’s why US shipments follow cooling seasons and refrigerant transitions rather than gas prices. The 2025 dip was a supply-chain event — A2L changeover plus destocking — not a demand verdict, and the six-month run of year-over-year gains through July 2026 reads like the channel refilling.
How Much of the World’s Heating Do Heat Pumps Supply?
Less than the sales headlines suggest. According to the IEA Heat Pump Monitor 2026:
| Metric | Value | As of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Share of global heating needs met by heat pumps (all sectors) | around 5% | 2024 | IEA |
| Share of global space heating needs in buildings | around 12% | 2024 | IEA |
| Europe’s share of global heat pump sales | over 20% | 2025 | IEA |
| Japan: Eco Cute share of residential water heating | close to 15% | 2025 | IEA |
| Japan: installed industrial heat pump capacity | nearly 650 MW | 2024 | IEA |
| Industrial heat demand technically coverable by commercial heat pumps | up to around 20% | 2024 | IEA |
| Heat pumps’ share of annual peak electricity demand, major markets | 2–16% | 2024 | IEA |
Natural gas displaced by heat pumps
The IEA estimates heat pumps avoided around 53 bcm of natural gas for building heating across Europe, Japan and China in 2025, up from 50 bcm in 2024. Without heat pumps, gas consumption for building heating would have been more than 10% higher in Europe and roughly 35% higher in Japan and China.
EHPA calculates that Europe’s 2.9 million new heat pumps sold in 2025 alone replace 2.5 bcm of LNG, and that heat pumps avoided €9.7 billion in EU import costs in 2025.
Who Makes Heat Pumps? Manufacturing Capacity by Region
The IEA puts global heat pump manufacturing capacity at roughly 145 GW per year in 2024, led by China (around 35%), the United States (25%) and the European Union (20%). More than 70% of buildings-sector sales in every major market were sourced domestically in 2024. The exposure sits upstream: rotary compressors are mostly produced in China.
Estimated manufacturing capacity by region, 2024
| Region | Share of global capacity (IEA) | Estimated capacity | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | around 35% | about 51 GW/yr | IEA share; Axis Intelligence Research estimate |
| United States | 25% | about 36 GW/yr | IEA share; Axis Intelligence Research estimate |
| European Union | 20% | about 29 GW/yr | IEA share; Axis Intelligence Research estimate |
| World | 100% | 145 GW/yr | IEA |
Estimated capacity = 145 GW × IEA regional share. Shares are IEA-rounded, so GW values are indicative.
Are heat pump factories running full?
Not close. Axis Intelligence Research estimates a global capacity utilisation indicator of about 74%: 2025 buildings sales of 108 GW divided by 2024 manufacturing capacity of 145 GW. Treat it as a directional estimate: the two IEA figures cover consecutive years, and sales for buildings are not identical to factory output. Directionally, though, it confirms what the sales curve implies: capacity built for the 2022 boom has been waiting for demand.
The IEA adds that China can produce heat pumps at a levelised cost 35–50% lower than other regions, which, combined with spare capacity, shapes the export pressure European and US manufacturers face.
Aidan Jad’s read: A quarter of the world’s heat pump lines idle is a pricing story before it’s an industrial story. Spare capacity plus a 35–50% cost gap means installers in Europe will keep seeing equipment price pressure even as demand recovers. The upfront-cost problem the IEA describes — equipment two to three times the price of a boiler — is partly an install-labour problem that factory slack can’t fix.
Germany Up Close: Retrofit, Stock and 2026 Forecast
Germany is the clearest live test of whether heat pumps can win the retrofit market, so its data deserves its own breakdown. All figures are from the BWP Branchenstudie 2026 unless noted.
| Metric | Value | As of |
|---|---|---|
| Hydronic heating heat pumps sold | 299,000 | 2025 |
| Installed into existing buildings | 243,300 (81%) | 2025 |
| Installed in new builds | 55,700 | 2025 |
| Air-to-water share of sales | 95% | 2025 |
| Monobloc share of air-to-water sales | 83% | 2025 |
| Ground-source units sold | 16,000 | 2025 |
| Hot-water-only heat pumps sold | 49,500 (+20%) | 2025 |
| Installed stock | 1.9 million | end-2025 |
| BEG subsidy approvals for heat pumps | 288,000 (+91%) | 2025 |
| Average BEG subsidy per approval | €16,500 | 2025 |
| Electricity-to-gas price ratio | about 3:1 | since 2025 |
| BWP 2026 sales forecast, business-as-usual | 332,500 (47% share) | 2026 forecast |
| BWP 2026 sales forecast, target scenario | 403,468 | 2026 forecast |
BWP’s own sensitivity analysis is the number to watch: a switch from percentage-based to flat-rate subsidies, it models, would leave heat pump sales 20–40% below business-as-usual in the following years, with 2027 falling to 216,500 units. BWP also notes that European comparisons show high heat pump demand once the electricity-to-gas price ratio reaches 2.5:1 or lower — Germany sits at about 3:1.
Aidan Jad’s read: Eight in ten German heat pumps now go into existing houses. That kills the “only works in new builds” argument with the manufacturers’ own sales data. But look at what’s holding it up: €16,500 per approval and a 3:1 price ratio. Pull the subsidy and BWP’s own model sends the market back to 2024 levels. The physics of retrofit is solved; the economics are still on a drip.
Methodology
Collection. Axis Intelligence Research assembled this dataset in September 2026 from primary publishers: the International Energy Agency (Heat Pump Monitor 2026; Global Energy Review 2026), the European Heat Pump Association (2026 market report release, March 2026 preliminary data, Q1 2026 release), the Bundesverband Wärmepumpe with BDH (Branchenstudie 2026 and January 2026 sales release), and AHRI shipment data. Where AHRI’s statistical release PDF was not retrievable, figures were taken from ACHR News’ reporting of the release and RMI’s AHRI-based tracker, and are flagged is_primary = no in the dataset. Every figure on this page was retrieved from its source document on September 17, 2026.
Units. Figures are kept in the unit each publisher uses — GW (IEA), units sold (EHPA, BWP), units shipped (AHRI). They are never converted between bases.
Axis Heat Pump Replacement Ratio (HPRR). HPRR = heat pump sales ÷ sales of non-heat-pump primary heating systems, same market, same year, same statistical publisher. Germany: numerator is BDH/BWP hydronic heating heat pump sales; denominator is BDH total heat generator sales minus heat pump sales (covering gas, oil and biomass systems). United States: numerator is AHRI air-source heat pump shipments; denominator is AHRI gas furnace shipments, both at RMI’s rounding. HPRR is published only where one body counts both sides on a consistent basis; it is not computed for Europe as a whole because no single European series counts competing systems alongside heat pumps.
Other Axis calculations.
- Non-heat-pump system sales change (Germany): (328,000 ÷ 519,500) − 1 = −36.9%.
- US year-to-date heat pump share: 2.57M ÷ 5.63M = 45.6%, from inputs rounded to 0.01 million.
- Capacity utilisation indicator: 108 GW (2025 sales) ÷ 145 GW (2024 capacity) = 74.5%, reported as about 74%. Estimate across consecutive years.
- Regional capacity: 145 GW × IEA regional share.
- Europe stock-to-sales multiple: 29.3M ÷ 2.9M = 10.1 years of current sales.
What the dataset does not cover. Chinese and Japanese unit sales are not published in freely accessible primary form at comparable granularity, so those markets appear through IEA analysis only. US figures exclude ductless systems not captured in AHRI’s unitary programme and exclude heat pump water heaters. Industrial and district-heating heat pumps are covered only at the headline level.
About This Dataset
The full dataset behind this page — 152 rows, each with its source organisation, document, URL, retrieval date, primary-source flag and calculation note — is available as heat-pump-statistics.csv under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) licence. Mirrors on Hugging Face, Kaggle and GitHub
Cite this dataset: Axis Intelligence Research, Heat Pump Statistics 2026: Global Sales, Market Share & Adoption Data, 2026.
Citation
APA Axis Intelligence Research, & Jad, A. (2026, September 17). Heat pump statistics 2026: Global sales, market share & adoption data. Axis Intelligence. https://axis-intelligence.com/heat-pump-statistics/
MLA Axis Intelligence Research, and Aidan Jad. “Heat Pump Statistics 2026: Global Sales, Market Share & Adoption Data.” Axis Intelligence, 17 Sept. 2026, axis-intelligence.com/heat-pump-statistics/.
Chicago Axis Intelligence Research, and Aidan Jad. “Heat Pump Statistics 2026: Global Sales, Market Share & Adoption Data.” Axis Intelligence, September 17, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/heat-pump-statistics/.
Heat Pump Market Questions, Answered With Data
Do heat pumps outsell gas furnaces in the United States?
Yes. The IEA reports US heat pumps outsold gas furnaces for the fourth consecutive year in 2025, even as heat pump sales fell around 13%. AHRI data compiled by RMI shows 3.6 million heat pumps shipped against 3.2 million gas furnaces, an Axis HPRR of about 1.1.
Why did US heat pump shipments fall in 2025?
The IEA links the decline to the requirement that heat pumps manufactured from 2025 use A2L refrigerants, which pulled R-410A equipment into 2024 sales, plus refrigerant shortages and slower housing construction. Shipments then rose 5.8% year over year through July 2026, per AHRI data.
Are heat pumps now the best-selling heating system in Germany?
Yes. BWP reports heat pumps took 48% of Germany’s heat generator market in 2025 with 299,000 units, making them the most-sold heating system for the first time. Axis Intelligence Research’s HPRR for Germany reached 0.91, meaning near-parity with all other heating systems combined.
Which country has the most heat pumps per household?
Norway, according to EHPA, with 650 installed heat pumps per 1,000 households at end-2025, followed by Finland at just above 540. For new sales in 2025, Lithuania led with 46 heat pumps sold per 1,000 households, ahead of Norway at 43.
Which European country sells the most heat pumps?
France, with 528,000 heat pumps sold in 2025 according to EHPA, followed by Italy with 423,000. France also has Europe’s largest installed base at around 7 million units. Germany ranks third in volume, with 299,000 hydronic heating heat pumps sold (BWP).
Did the 2026 Strait of Hormuz closure increase heat pump sales?
European first-quarter data points that way. EHPA reports residential heat pump sales in 11 countries rose 17% to around 575,000 in January–March 2026, with France, Germany and Poland averaging 25% growth after the March 2 closure. Austria, without subsidies, fell 30%.
What share of global heating do heat pumps provide?
Around 5% of global heating needs across all sectors, and around 12% of space heating needs in buildings, according to the IEA Heat Pump Monitor 2026 (2024 data). Under the IEA’s Stated Policies Scenario, sales more than double by 2035 and cover around 20% of space heating needs.
How much natural gas do heat pumps save?
The IEA estimates heat pumps avoided around 53 bcm of natural gas for building heating across Europe, Japan and China in 2025. Without them, building-heating gas use would have been more than 10% higher in Europe and roughly 35% higher in Japan and China.
Is heat pump manufacturing capacity outrunning demand?
Axis Intelligence Research estimates global heat pump factories ran at roughly 74% utilisation, comparing 2025 buildings sales of 108 GW with 2024 capacity of 145 GW (IEA). China holds around 35% of capacity and, per the IEA, produces at a levelised cost 35–50% lower than other regions.
Do heat pumps work in existing homes, or only new builds?
In Germany, most go into existing homes. BWP’s Branchenstudie 2026 estimates 243,300 of the 299,000 heat pumps sold in 2025 — 81% — were installed in existing buildings, with 55,700 in new construction.