Costs · grants · running costs, told straight
Air Source Heat Pump Cost: the real 2026 numbers
What an air source heat pump costs installed, what the grant takes off, what it leaves you paying, and the running-cost caveat the Energy Saving Trust prints and most cost pages do not.
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Air source heat pump cost is the question that decides whether most people go further, and it is usually answered with a range so wide it tells you nothing. Here is the version with every figure attributed and dated. The Energy Saving Trust, whose heat pump advice was last updated on 23 September 2026, puts a typical installation at around £12,000. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme pays £7,500 of that in England and Wales, and £9,000 where you are replacing oil or LPG with no mains gas connection. So the number most households are really weighing is closer to £4,500.
None of those figures is our price. Ours comes from a survey of your home, your heat loss and your tariff, and it arrives itemised. What this page gives you is the benchmark to hold it — or anyone else’s — against, including the two things a cost page rarely admits: that the grant is claimed by the installer and not by you, and that a heat pump does not automatically cost less to run than the boiler it replaces.
Quick answer
Air source heat pump cost, in short:
- Energy Saving Trust (updated 23 September 2026): typical installation around £12,000
- Boiler Upgrade Scheme: £7,500 in England and Wales — £9,000 total where you replace oil or LPG and have no mains gas connection, until 31 March 2027
- So the comparable net figure is around £4,500, or around £3,000 for an eligible oil or LPG home
- The INSTALLER applies for the grant, and only an installer certified by MCS for heat pumps can
- 0% VAT on installation until 31 March 2027, then the reduced rate of 5% — not 20% (HMRC Notice 708/6)
- Running cost is not automatically lower: electricity costs nearly 4× gas on a standard tariff, which is why the tariff, not the heat pump, decides your bill
- No grant for hybrid systems, and not for replacing heating that is already low-carbon
Figures: Energy Saving Trust (23 September 2026), GOV.UK Boiler Upgrade Scheme and HMRC VAT Notice 708/6 — read 6 October 2026.
What £12,000 is, and what it is not
Energy Saving Trust’s figure — around £12,000 — is an installed cost: the heat pump, the hot water cylinder, the pipework, the controls, the commissioning and the certification. It is not the price of the unit, which is why hardware prices you find online look so much lower and mean so little. EST says the installed figure moves with the size of the heat pump, the size of your home, whether it is a new build or an existing property, and whether your radiators need upgrading.
Two of those four deserve naming properly, because they are where quotes diverge most. A heat pump runs at a lower flow temperature than a boiler, so existing radiators give out less heat than they used to — a heat-loss survey decides which ones have to grow, and a quote that never mentions radiators has either checked or hasn’t, and you need to know which. And a heat pump needs somewhere to put a hot water cylinder, even if your combi boiler did not. If a quote is notably cheaper than the rest, those are the first two line items to look for.
The grant: £7,500, or £9,000 if you heat with oil or LPG
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme pays £7,500 towards an air source heat pump in England and Wales, and the same amount towards a ground source heat pump — they sit on one band, so anyone arguing you away from ground source on the grant figure is wrong. Where a property is heated by oil or LPG and has no mains gas connection, a temporary uplift of £1,500 runs until 31 March 2027, taking the total to £9,000.
That condition is narrower than the way it is usually reported. It is tied to the fuel you are replacing, not to being off the gas grid in general: an off-grid home running on direct electric heating gets £7,500, not £9,000. There is no grant for hybrid systems, and replacing heating that is already low-carbon. Developer-built new builds are excluded; self-builds are eligible, and if you move into a finished new build with a fossil-fuel boiler you may still be able to apply.
The mechanism matters as much as the money. The scheme is installer-led: an MCS-certified installer applies for the voucher and the grant comes off your invoice, so you never handle the funds. Because MCS certification is granted per technology, only an installer certified for heat pumps can take that route — a company certified for solar PV or battery storage is not thereby certified for heat pumps. Ask to see the certificate and read the technology on it.
So what do you actually pay?
Taking EST’s typical installed figure and the grant as published, the comparable net numbers are these. They are arithmetic on two cited figures, not a quotation:
- Mains gas home, replacing a gas boiler — around £12,000 less £7,500 = around £4,500.
- Off-grid home replacing oil or LPG, before 31 March 2027 — around £12,000 less £9,000 = around £3,000.
- Off-grid home on direct electric heating — the uplift does not apply, so around £4,500 again.
- Replacing an existing heat pump or other low-carbon heating — no grant, so the full installed cost.
Those are national averages carrying a national average’s health warning: a three-bedroom semi with modern radiators and a cylinder cupboard sits below them, and a large older house needing a pipework rework and six new radiators sits above. The only number that means anything for your house comes from a heat-loss calculation on your house.
Want the number for your home instead of the national average?
A free survey gives you a heat-loss figure, an itemised price, the grant position and an honest read on whether a heat pump suits your home at all.
The running-cost caveat most cost pages leave out
A heat pump is more than three times more efficient than a gas or oil boiler. That sounds like it settles the running-cost question, and it does not, because the fuel changes at the same time as the efficiency. Energy Saving Trust’s own wording is the honest version: on a standard electricity tariff, electricity costs nearly four times what gas does, so a heat pump can cost slightly more to run than a new gas or oil boiler — a heat-pump time-of-use tariff is what changes that.
So the tariff does more for your bill than the hardware does. EST’s latest research found that a heat pump on a heat-pump time-of-use tariff can cost less to run than a gas boiler, and that disconnecting the gas supply once the heat pump is in removes the gas standing charge as well. What that means in practice is that two identical installations in two identical houses can produce bills that differ by hundreds of pounds a year, purely on tariff and controls — and that anyone quoting you a running-cost saving without first asking what you pay per kWh is guessing.
Why solar changes the sums more here than anywhere else
A heat pump moves your heating demand from gas or oil onto electricity, which means your annual electricity consumption rises substantially — and that is exactly the demand that solar panels and battery storage are good at absorbing. The pairing is not a sales device; it is why heat pumps and solar are so often specified together.
Two honest limits on that. Solar generates least in the months a heat pump works hardest, so panels will not cover winter heating — the gain is on shoulder-season and hot-water demand, and on using cheap off-peak electricity you have stored rather than buying it at peak. And sizing matters: our battery storage cost guide explains why a battery sized for a house without a heat pump is usually too small for one with it. If you are considering both, have them designed together rather than a year apart — one visit, one set of scaffolding, one network notification.
VAT: 0% until 31 March 2027, then 5%
Installing a heat pump in residential accommodation carries 0% VAT until 31 March 2027, and then reverts to 5% from 1 April 2027 — the reduced rate, not the standard 20% you will sometimes see claimed. That is HMRC’s position in VAT on energy-saving materials and heating equipment (VAT Notice 708/6). Equipment bought on its own, without installation, is standard-rated, which is another reason a parts price and an installed price are not comparable numbers.
On a £12,000 installation the difference between 0% and 5% is around £600. That is not a reason to rush a decision this size, but it is a real number and it belongs in the timing conversation rather than being discovered afterwards.
Five things to check in any heat pump quote
The Energy Saving Trust recommends getting quotes from at least three MCS-certified installers. That is good advice and it only works if you can compare them, so here is what to compare:
- A heat-loss calculation, room by room — not a rule of thumb from the floor area. It determines the kW output, and an oversized heat pump cycles and costs more to run.
- Which radiators are being changed, and why — named, priced, and tied to the flow temperature the design assumes.
- Where the hot water cylinder goes — with its capacity, and what happens to the space it takes.
- The MCS certificate, and the technology on it — heat pumps specifically. It is what makes the £7,500 possible, and it is granted per technology.
- The grant, shown as a deduction — on the invoice, not as a promise to help you apply. The scheme does not work the second way.
If you want the wider version of that exercise across any renewable quote, we wrote one: what is in a solar quote, line by line. The planning question — whether the outdoor unit needs permission, and the 37 dB(A) noise limit it has to meet — has its own answer in our planning permission guide.
Air source heat pump cost: your questions
How much does an air source heat pump cost in the UK?
The Energy Saving Trust, whose air source heat pump advice was last updated on 23 September 2026, puts the typical installation at around £12,000. That is the installed cost of the system, not the price of the unit, and EST says it moves with the size of the heat pump, the size of your home, whether the property is a new build or an existing one, and whether your radiators need upgrading. Against that, the Boiler Upgrade Scheme pays £7,500 in England and Wales, so the figure most households are actually comparing is nearer £4,500. Our own number comes from a survey; this page gives you the benchmark to hold it against.
How much is the heat pump grant, and can it be more than £7,500?
Yes. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme pays £7,500 towards an air source or ground source heat pump in England and Wales. Where the property is heated by oil or LPG and has no mains gas connection, a temporary uplift of £1,500 runs until 31 March 2027, taking the total to £9,000. The uplift is tied to the fuel you are replacing, not simply to being off the gas grid: an off-grid home on direct electric heating gets £7,500, not £9,000. There is no grant for a hybrid system, and you cannot use it to replace heating that is already low-carbon.
Who applies for the £7,500 — me or the installer?
The installer. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is installer-led: an MCS-certified installer applies for the voucher and the grant is taken off your invoice, so you never handle the money. That has a practical consequence worth knowing before you collect quotes — the grant is only available through an installer certified by MCS for heat pumps specifically, because MCS certification is granted per technology. Ask anyone quoting you to show you their MCS certificate for heat pumps, and check the technology on it. A company certified for solar PV or battery storage is not thereby certified for heat pumps.
Will a heat pump actually cost less to run than my gas boiler?
Not automatically, and this is the part most cost pages leave out. A heat pump is more than three times more efficient than a gas or oil boiler, but on a standard electricity tariff electricity costs nearly four times what gas does — so the Energy Saving Trust is explicit that a heat pump can cost slightly more to run than a new gas or oil boiler. What changes the arithmetic is a heat-pump time-of-use tariff, which EST says can make a heat pump cheaper to run than gas; disconnecting the gas supply altogether also removes the gas standing charge. Anyone promising you a running-cost saving without asking what tariff you are on is guessing.
Is there VAT on an air source heat pump?
No, for now. Installing a heat pump in residential accommodation carries 0% VAT until 31 March 2027, after which it reverts to the reduced rate of 5% — not the standard 20% (HMRC VAT Notice 708/6). That applies to the installation; equipment bought on its own, without installation, is standard-rated. The deadline is worth noting if you are weighing up timing, because a 5% rate on a £12,000 job is around £600 that a 2026 installation does not pay.
Do radiators have to be replaced, and is that included in the price?
Sometimes, and it should be in the quote either way. A heat pump runs at a lower flow temperature than a boiler, so each radiator gives out less heat than it did — which is why the Energy Saving Trust lists radiator upgrades as one of the four things that move the installed cost. A proper survey works out the heat loss room by room and tells you which radiators need to grow; a quote that does not mention radiators at all has either checked and found nothing, or has not checked. Ask which. The same survey should say where the hot water cylinder goes, because a heat pump needs one even if your boiler did not.
Want a real number for your home?
Request a free, no-obligation survey and you will get the honest version: the heat-loss figure for your house, an itemised price, where you stand on the £7,500 grant, and what it would genuinely cost to run on your tariff. If the honest answer is “not yet”, that is the answer you will get — alongside air source heat pumps, solar panels and battery storage if you want the full electric picture.
Get a free quote · Call 0204 547 1892 · Read the air source heat pump guide