Heat pumps up 5.0% year over year in August 2026, a seventh straight gain

US shipments of air-source heat pumps rose 5.0% year over year in August 2026, to 338,416 units from 322,448 in August 2025, according to the monthly shipment release the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) published on October 9, 2026. By The Duck Curve's count of AHRI's 2026 releases, that is seven months in a row of year-over-year growth, every one of them after the federal Section 25C credit for heat pumps ended with 2025.

The streak held, but it slowed. Heat pump shipments were up 5.8% in February, 9.8% in March, 1.8% in April, 2.3% in May, 15.1% in June, 17.6% in July and 5.0% in August, per the releases listed on AHRI's monthly shipments page, after January's release reported a 16.5% decline. August's gain is the smallest since May. Month over month the figure fell from July's 413,679, as it did in 2025, when 351,913 units in July became 322,448 in August; the streak is a year-over-year one.

August's figure counts heat pumps that changed hands in August, not heat pumps running in houses. The release's Notes and FAQs define a shipment as a transfer of ownership to a customer in the fifty states or the District of Columbia, whether the unit was made domestically or imported, and the figures aggregate data from the AHRI member companies that participate in its Statistics Program. AHRI "does not conduct any market forecasting and is not qualified to discuss market trends," the same section says, and it publishes no state or regional breakdown.

Air conditioners, furnaces and water heaters

The faster growth in August was in air conditioners. Central air conditioner shipments rose 17.2% to 418,323 units, and the combined air conditioner and heat pump total rose 11.4% to 756,739. Heat pumps were 44.7% of that combined total, down from 47.5% in August 2025, by The Duck Curve's arithmetic on the release's figures.

The month also flipped the year-to-date order. Through August, the release puts central air conditioners up 6.5% to 3,481,613 units and heat pumps up 5.7% to 2,908,644. A month earlier, the July release had heat pumps ahead, up 5.8% year to date against 5.2% for air conditioners.

Against 2024 the picture reverses again. The August release also prints the 2024 year-to-date figures: heat pumps are 2.7% above their January to August 2024 total of 2,832,062, while air conditioners are 10.8% below 2024's 3,903,730, by our arithmetic. Heat pumps are running ahead of a year in which the federal credit still applied.

Gas warm-air furnaces did not extend their summer run. Shipments fell 4.3% year over year to 287,710 in August, after year-over-year gains of 15.2% in June and 2.1% in July that followed five months of declines. Year to date, gas furnaces are down 5.0% to 2,106,454. Oil furnaces rose 27.1% to 3,052 units, a small category.

Residential storage water heaters slipped on both fuels: electric down 1.6% to 368,402 units and gas down 1.9% to 299,710. Year to date, electric is down 4.8% and gas 2.4%, so heat pumps are carrying the release's electrification numbers on their own.

Without the credit

The Section 25C energy efficient home improvement credit equaled 30% of certain qualified expenses, capped at $2,000 a year for qualified heat pumps, water heaters, biomass stoves or biomass boilers, per the IRS. The IRS page says the credit can be claimed "for improvements made through December 31, 2025," and elsewhere that it "is allowed for qualifying property placed in service on or after Jan. 1, 2023, and before December 31, 2025." Under either sentence, the credit ended with 2025.

Homeowners lost the Section 25D credit for rooftop solar they own with the same tax year: that credit "is not available for any property placed in service after December 31, 2025," according to the IRS. Residential solar installed capacity fell 12% in Q2 2026 from a year earlier, per the SEIA and Wood Mackenzie report published September 10, 2026. Heat pump shipments grew year over year in each month of that quarter. The AHRI release cannot say how much of that growth is cooling demand and how much is a furnace replaced by a heat pump, because it reports heat pumps alongside central air conditioners and by size, not by application.

Canada is going the other way on policy. On October 8, 2026, the Canadian government announced a C$2 billion National Heat Pump Rebate of up to C$10,000 for eligible below-median-income households, with no date yet to apply.

Outlook

AHRI's 2026 releases have each come out on the second Friday of the month, from March 13 through October 9. If that cadence holds, September shipment figures arrive on November 13, 2026, and they will show whether the streak reaches eight months and whether gas furnaces return to growth as heating season begins.