Does a heat pump increase the value of your house?

‘Lower heating costs, higher property value’: many providers advertise in a similar way. The first part is often true. For the second part, it's worth taking a closer look. The price of your house is set by the market: location, condition, plot, demand. The heating is just one factor among many. What definitely changes with a heat pump, however, is the Energy Performance Certificate (Energieausweis). And every buyer sees it before they even set foot in your house.

What is in the Energy Performance Certificate (Energieausweis)

The Austrian Energy Performance Certificate (Energieausweis) follows the OIB Guideline 6 (OIB-Richtlinie 6). On the first page, there are several key figures, each with a rating from A++ to G. For your question, it's important to know which of these depend on the heating system.

The heating demand (HWB) only describes the building envelope: how much heat is lost through walls, roof, windows and cellar. It has nothing to do with the heating system, so a heat pump does not change it.

The final energy demand, the primary energy demand (PEB), the CO₂ emissions and the overall energy efficiency factor (fGEE), on the other hand, depend directly on what you heat with. Here, switching makes a big difference.

The reason lies in the guideline's conversion factors. In the 2023 edition, one kilowatt hour of heating oil accounts for 271 grams of CO₂, and one kilowatt hour of electricity for 156 grams. However, the heat pump only needs about a third as much electricity as the oil boiler burns heating oil, because it gets the rest of the heat from the outside air.

A 1983 house, calculated in detail

Let's take a detached house in Lower Austria: built in 1983, 150 m² heated area, windows replaced in the 2000s, facade never insulated, radiators in all rooms, oil boiler in the cellar. In Lower Austria, the Energy Performance Certificate currently follows OIB Guideline 6 (OIB-Richtlinie 6) in the 2023 edition.

So that we can calculate, we need assumptions. We set them out transparently:

• Heating demand: 140 kWh per m² per year
• Heat for space heating and hot water from the boiler: 160 kWh per m² per year
• The oil boiler uses 80% of the energy in the heating oil over the year
• The heat pump achieves a seasonal performance factor (SPF) of 3.0 with the radiators
• Household electricity: 16.4 kWh per m² per year, the standard value on Austrian Energy Performance Certificates

With oil, the house burns around 30,000 kWh of heating oil per year, roughly 3,000 litres. With the heat pump, it takes around 8,000 kWh of electricity for the same amount of heat. On the Energy Performance Certificate, it looks like this:

Heating demand: 140 kWh/m²a, Class D. Before as after.

Final energy demand: from 216 to 70 kWh/m²a.

Primary energy demand: from 269 kWh/m²a (Class D) to 123 kWh/m²a (Class B).

CO₂: from 56.8 kg/m²a (Class E) to 10.9 kg/m²a (Class A).

fGEE: It is the final energy demand divided by a reference value that depends on the building and not on the heating system. It therefore drops in the same proportion as the final energy demand, here to around a third of the old value.

We also calculated with a lower seasonal performance factor of 2.5. The classes remain the same. Nevertheless: this is an estimate. An official Energy Performance Certificate (Energieausweis) is calculated by an authorised professional using the actual building elements and system data.

In Vienna and Tyrol, the certificate already looks different

Since July 2026, the new 2025 edition of OIB Guideline 6 (OIB-Richtlinie 6) has applied in Vienna and Tyrol. There, the certificate distinguishes between ‘decarbonised’ and ‘fossil’. Houses with oil or gas heating receive their rating with the addition of ‘fossil’, and Class A is unreachable for them. Overall efficiency is assessed via final energy demand.

Our example house there with oil would be in Class G fossil (216 kWh/m²a, the threshold for G is above 175). With a heat pump, it would be in Class A (70 kWh/m²a, threshold 90). According to the OIB, the other federal states have not yet adopted the 2025 edition (as of July 2026).

These figures are in every property listing

The Energy Performance Certificate Presentation Act (Energieausweis-Vorlage-Gesetz) specifies what must be stated in sales and rental advertisements. Since 1 July 2026, these are heating demand and final energy demand including efficiency class. With an older certificate, you may temporarily state heating demand and fGEE as before. If the information is missing, you and your estate agent face fines of up to 1,450 euros.

Before signing, the buyer must see a certificate that is at most ten years old, and after the contract, they receive it within 14 days. The values in it are then considered an agreed characteristic of the house.

From this follows a practical point: after replacing the heating system, your old certificate remains valid and continues to show the oil boiler. If you want to sell or rent out, have a new one calculated. Otherwise, no one looking at the listing will see that you have upgraded.

What studies say about the price

The honest answer first: for Austria, there is no published study showing by how much a house becomes more valuable by switching from oil to a heat pump. What does exist are evaluations by energy class. These say something about the connection, but nothing about the heating system alone.

Austria, 2012. A study commissioned by the EU Commission evaluated listings from Vienna and Lower Austria, adjusting for location, size and features. Result: for each better energy class, the asking price was on average 8% higher, in Lower Austria 5 to 6%, in Vienna 10 to 11%. For rents, it was 4.4% per class. The limitations are significant: the data is from 2012, there were around 2,300 listings, and no actual purchase prices. Furthermore, the class at that time was based on heating demand, i.e. the building envelope. A heating replacement would not have changed this class at all.

Austria, 2024 and 2025. A major property portal compared around 132,000 listings for owner-occupied flats. Class A to A++ was at a median of 7,000 euros per m², Class F and G at 3,632 euros. That sounds clear-cut, but it is not proof of an effect of the energy class. The figures are not adjusted: Class A flats are mostly new builds in good locations, while Class G flats are mostly old buildings. Location and year of construction are wrapped up in the price difference.

EU overview, 2018. The Joint Research Centre of the EU Commission summarised many studies from several countries. As a rule of thumb, it quotes 3 to 8% higher prices for more energy-efficient residential buildings compared to comparable properties, and around 3 to 5% higher rents. This applies to energy efficiency in general, not to Austria and not to heating in particular.

So better energy ratings and higher prices are connected. How much of that is down to the heating system in an individual case can only be told by an expert valuation for your house.

Legally, nothing is forcing you to replace it at present. The 2024 EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive requires every member state to reduce the average primary energy consumption of all residential buildings by at least 16% by 2030, and by 20 to 22% by 2035. This is a target for the overall building stock, not an obligation for your specific house. The Austrian Renewable Heat Act (Erneuerbare-Wärme-Gesetz) only bans fossil heating systems in new builds. Nevertheless: whoever buys your house also inherits the question of how long the oil boiler will still keep running.

When it comes to loans, some banks now also look at the Energy Performance Certificate (Energieausweis). Some offer ‘green’ home loans if energy ratings are very good or improve significantly during a renovation. We did not find a quantified interest rate advantage on their websites. Ask on a case-by-case basis.

When a heat pump does not increase the value

The most common case is banal: the Energy Performance Certificate is not renewed after the renovation. Then the listing shows the oil values, and for buyers, the upgrade is invisible.

Worse is a poorly sized system. A heat pump that can't keep up in January or keeps switching on and off constantly will catch the attention of any surveyor. Before placing an order, have the heating load calculated; a first assessment is provided by the heating load calculator. It is similar with very hot heating water: if your radiators require permanently high flow temperatures, electricity consumption rises. Whether your radiators are sufficient is explained in the guide on flow temperature.

Sometimes the problem isn't the heating system at all. A leaking roof or damp cellar walls depress the price more than a new heating system increases it, and the heating demand remains as poor as before. In those cases, insulation is often the more important first step. And anyone who buys an old house solely for the plot and intends to demolish it won't pay an extra penny for the heating system.

Then there is the location. An outdoor unit placed directly in front of a neighbour's bedroom window is a talking point during a viewing, not a selling point. Check the location in advance using the sound calculator.

What you can do now

First calculate whether a heat pump fits your house: with the heat pump calculator and the suitability check. What the federal government and federal state pay when switching can be found under public subsidies and in the subsidy manager. If you want to compare specific quotes, get up to three quotes from local installers via the request for quotes.

And if you're planning to sell: make sure to factor in the new Energieausweis (energy performance certificate) straight away. It's where your renovation becomes visible to buyers.