For three years the federal tax credit did a lot of selling for contractors. Up to $2,000 back on a heat pump. 30 percent of the cost of qualifying windows, up to $600. In Canada, a grant of up to $5,000 and an interest-free loan of up to $40,000. Those offers are over. The US credit doesn't apply to anything installed after December 31, 2025. Canada's grant and loan are both closed.
Plenty of contractor websites never caught up. On October 17, 2026 we opened the websites of 1,212 HVAC, window, insulation and roofing companies in 14 US and 5 Canadian cities. These are the same sites their Google Business Profiles send people to. Then we read every line about tax credits and grants.
The Short Answer: The Credit Is Gone, and About 1 in 10 Contractor Sites Still Sell It
122 of the 1,212 websites (10.1 percent) still present the ended credit, grant or loan as something a customer can get. 92 of them are specific, with a dollar amount, a percentage or the program's name. The other 30 say something softer, like “you may qualify for federal tax credits.”
The bigger number is among companies that talk about the credit at all. 157 sites mention it. Only 24 of them (15.3 percent) say it ended. 122 of the 157, nearly 4 in 5, still sell it somewhere on the site.
HVAC and insulation companies are the worst, at about 1 in 6. Roofers almost never brought it up. If you sell heat pumps, furnaces, windows or insulation, there's a real chance your site, your Google profile or your ads still promise money the customer won't get. They find out when they file their taxes, or when a competitor tells them first.
What Ended, and When
In the US, the law Congress passed in July 2025 moved the end dates up. The IRS summary of the changes says the Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit (25C) is “not allowed for any property placed in service after Dec. 31, 2025,” and the Residential Clean Energy Credit (25D) is “not allowed for any expenditures made after Dec. 31, 2025.” In Canada, Natural Resources Canada now lists the Greener Homes Grant as closed. For the Greener Homes Loan, it says funding “is now fully committed” and “New loan applications cannot be approved.”
| Program | What contractor sites still quote | Status today |
|---|---|---|
| Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit (25C), US | 30 percent of the cost: up to $2,000 a year for heat pumps and heat pump water heaters, $600 for a central air conditioner or gas furnace, $600 for windows, $1,200 a year for insulation and other upgrades, $3,200 total | Ended for anything placed in service after Dec. 31, 2025 |
| Residential Clean Energy Credit (25D), US | 30 percent of the cost of solar panels, geothermal heat pumps and battery storage | Ended for spending after Dec. 31, 2025 |
| Canada Greener Homes Grant | “Up to $5,000,” “up to $5,600,” even “up to $10,000” | Closed |
| Canada Greener Homes Loan | Up to $40,000, interest-free, 10 years to repay | Closed, funding fully committed |
Two things are still true, and they matter for how you rewrite your pages. First, a homeowner who had a heat pump installed in 2025 can still claim it on their 2025 return, so a page that clearly says “through December 31, 2025” isn't lying. It's just out of date. The amounts above come from the IRS page for the 25C credit, which still lists them for past years.
Second, the Inflation Reduction Act also funded rebates that states run themselves, often called HOMES and HEAR. Those are a different program from the tax credit, and some are open. A June 2026 Building Performance Association factsheet says twelve states and the District of Columbia had launched them. So a page that mentions the Inflation Reduction Act isn't automatically wrong. We didn't count state rebates, utility rebates or provincial programs as mistakes.
How We Checked 1,212 Contractor Websites
We used Google's Places API to search “HVAC company,” “window replacement company,” “insulation contractor” and “roofing contractor” in Phoenix, Dallas, Atlanta, Denver, Charlotte, Tampa, Seattle, Minneapolis, Columbus, Kansas City, Nashville, Sacramento, Boston, Chicago, Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax. That's 76 searches and the top 20 results from each, 1,520 listings in all. They pointed to 1,335 different websites, and 1,212 of them opened.
For each site we read the home page plus up to seven pages whose links mentioned tax credits, rebates, incentives, grants, financing, specials or heat pumps. That came to 3,629 pages, about three per site. Then we read every sentence that mentioned a federal tax credit, 25C, 25D, the Inflation Reduction Act or the Greener Homes Grant or Loan, and sorted each site by hand.
Know the limits before you read the results:
- It's a lower bound. We read the page code without running scripts, so claims inside pop-ups, banners, images, PDFs and quote tools were missed. We also didn't check ads or Google profile posts.
- It's the top 20, not every contractor. These are the businesses Google showed for those searches on one morning.
- One reviewer, fixed rules. A site counts as still advertising only if it presents an ended program as available, with no end date or ending notice on the pages we opened. Pages that said “through December 31, 2025” went in their own group.
- Some stale pages are old blog posts. We counted them anyway, because Google still shows them to homeowners.
122 Still Advertise It. HVAC and Insulation Are the Worst.
Here's the share of sites in each trade that still present an ended credit, grant or loan as available. A few companies showed up under more than one trade.
| Trade | Sites opened | Still advertise it | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| HVAC | 319 | 54 | 16.9% |
| Insulation | 277 | 42 | 15.2% |
| Windows and doors | 282 | 25 | 8.9% |
| Roofing | 340 | 3 | 0.9% |
| US, all four trades | 878 | 87 | 9.9% |
| Canada, all four trades | 335 | 35 | 10.4% |
| All sites | 1,212 | 122 | 10.1% |
Canadian HVAC companies stood out. 17 of 89 (19.1 percent) still promote the Greener Homes Grant or Loan. Several put it on the home page.
And here's how the 157 sites that mention the credit or grant at all break down:
| What the site says | Sites |
|---|---|
| Presents it as available, with an amount, a percentage or the program's name | 81 |
| Says it ended on one page, still sells it on another | 11 |
| Says “federal tax credits” are available, no details | 30 |
| Dated to 2025 or earlier, never says it ended | 11 |
| Says it ended | 24 |
Ranking didn't protect anyone. Companies in Google's top 3 for their search were just as likely to have the old claim, 19 of 197 (9.6 percent), as companies in spots 4 to 20, 103 of 1,015 (10.1 percent). The other 981 sites never mentioned any of it.
“Through 2032,” “Active in 2026” and a Credit From 2009: What the Pages Say
Some of these are honest pages that nobody went back to. Others say things that were never going to age well. We're not naming anyone, because the point is how common this is, not any one company.
- Six sites still say the credit runs through 2032. That was the end date in the original 2022 law, before Congress moved it. One page still carries the line “INFORMATION UPDATED 12/30/2022.”
- Two sites put the dead credit on pages written for 2026. One window company's articles say “Federal tax credits are active in 2026” and “Yes, the federal 25C Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit remains available in 2026.” The same site's category page is titled “The Federal Window Tax Credit Ended.” The other is a page titled as tax credit information for 2026 that offers “Up to $2,000 in federal tax credits.”
- Five sites quote amounts from before 2023, like a $500 credit or a $150 furnace credit. One window page offers “up to $1,500 for any efficiency improvements made to your home in 2009 and 2010.”
- 20 sites put a specific claim on the exact page their Google Business Profile links to. Lines like “Qualifying homeowners may receive up to $3,200 in federal tax credits,” and in Canada, “Discover savings with rebates up to $5000 available through Canada Greener Homes Grant.”
- 11 sites contradict themselves. One Calgary home page leads with “4 Powerful Benefits of the Canada Greener Homes Loan: Up to $40K.” Further down the same page, it says the loan is “no longer accepting new applications.”
Our read on how this happens: somebody wrote a good incentives page in 2023, when the credit was new and worth talking about, and nobody has owned the page since. The law changed and the page didn't.
Not sure what your site still says? Book a free 20-minute call. We'll search your website, Google Business Profile and ads for old tax credit and grant claims while you're on the line, and show you every one we find.
Book a Free Claims Check →Your Competitors Are Already Using It Against You
The 24 companies that got it right didn't stop at their own pages. Some turned the change into a reason to trust them over everyone else. We found four that warn homeowners about contractors who didn't update:
- “If an ad promises a federal tax credit on a 2026 install, it's out of date.”
- “Homeowners should be careful with websites and advertisements that still quote the former $600 air conditioner tax credit or $2,000 heat pump tax credit for a 2026 installation.”
- “If you read about a 30% federal tax credit elsewhere, that information is out of date.”
- “If a bid you're holding includes ... a 2026 federal 25C credit, bring it to our free second opinion.”
That last one is a sales tactic, and a smart one. A homeowner comparing two heat pump quotes is likely to trust the company that told them the truth about the credit. Next to it, the company still promising $2,000 back looks careless at best.
It costs you after the sale too. A customer who bought partly because of the credit finds out at tax time that it doesn't apply. That's when you get the angry phone call or the one-star review, months after the job is done.
The Old Claim Hides in More Places Than Your Website
Your incentives page is the obvious one. These are the ones people forget:
- Your Google Business Profile. The website link on your profile is the page we opened, and for 20 companies it carried the claim. Also check your profile's business description, your listed services and products, and any old posts or offers. We explain how profile posts work in our post on Google Business Profile posts.
- Your Google Ads. Headlines, descriptions, callouts, promotion assets and sitelinks written in 2024 can still say something like “Up to $2,000 Tax Credit.” A sitelink pointing at your old tax credit page counts too.
- Pages Google picks for you. If your Search campaigns run on AI Max, Google can write headlines from your website and choose which page a click lands on. An old incentives page can end up feeding your ads. Here's what AI Max changes and which settings to check.
- Your menus and page titles. A few sites had nothing wrong in the body text, but still had “Federal Tax Credits” or “Greener Homes Loan” in the menu.
- Your quote templates and follow-up emails. If your estimate software adds an incentives line to every proposal, it's going out on every quote you send.
The 10-Minute Check, and What to Say Instead
- Search your own site. Type
site:yourwebsite.com "tax credit"into Google, then repeat with “25C,” “30%,” “$2,000,” “$3,200,” “2032,” “Inflation Reduction Act” and, in Canada, “Greener Homes.” Open every result. - Read your home page and your Google profile like a customer. Look at banners, menus and the specials page. Those are easy to miss.
- Search your ads. In Google Ads, search ads and assets for “tax credit,” “credit” and “rebate.” Check promotion assets and sitelinks too.
- Check your quote and email templates. Ask whoever set up your estimate software.
- Rewrite, don't delete. A page that ranks for “tax credit” is worth keeping. Turn it into an honest answer.
That last step is worth doing for a reason beyond cleanup. Homeowners are still searching for this. Keyword Planner shows about 880 US searches a month for “hvac tax credit 2026” and 720 for “heat pump tax credit 2026.” A page from a local company that says plainly “the federal credit ended, here's what you can still get in our area” gives them a straight answer, and gives them a reason to call you.
What to put on it:
- One plain sentence about the credit. “The federal 25C tax credit ended for equipment installed after December 31, 2025.” Link to the IRS page so the customer can check it.
- What's still available where you work. Utility rebates, any state or provincial program that's open, and manufacturer rebates. Check each program's own page before you print a number, because these change.
- Financing, if you offer it. A monthly payment option is an offer you control, unlike a government program. Here's the break-even math on offering financing.
- A date. “Updated October 2026” tells the customer someone is watching the page, and gives you a reason to check it again in six months.
This is the kind of work our SEO content service does every month, and we manage Google Business Profiles and Google Ads for contractors too. We don't sell equipment or process rebates, and nothing here is tax advice. If a customer asks about their own return, point them to the IRS page or their tax preparer.
How we did this: On October 17, 2026 we ran Google Places API text searches for four trades in 19 US and Canadian cities and took the top 20 results each (1,520 listings, 1,335 websites). We fetched the raw HTML of 1,212 sites that opened, the home page plus up to seven incentive, financing or offer pages each (3,629 pages), without running scripts. Every site that mentioned a tax credit or a Greener Homes program was read and labelled by hand. State IRA rebates, utility rebates, provincial programs, financing promotions and customer reviews that mention a program were not counted. The IRS, Natural Resources Canada and Building Performance Association pages were read the same day. We don't name the companies, because the point is the pattern, not any one business.