Heat pump vs gas furnace: which is actually cheaper to run

The short answer

Using heating season prices for 2025-12, 2026-01, 2026-02, a heat pump rated HSPF2 11.0 with 10% backup heat delivers heat more cheaply than a 95% AFUE condensing gas furnace in 4 states. In 33 states the furnace is cheaper. In 8 the two are within 10% of each other, which is a tie once you allow for how much fuel prices move between seasons.

That result surprises people, because the overwhelming majority of published heat pump calculators return a saving for everyone. Two things explain the gap. Most use a single national average fuel price rather than your state. Many also read the most recent monthly EIA gas figure, which in summer runs up to double the winter number for reasons that have nothing to do with the commodity.

How the comparison actually works

Every heating system is a machine for turning purchased energy into heat in your house. The only question that matters for running cost is how many dollars it takes to put one kilowatt hour of heat into the room.

A combustion appliance burns fuel and loses some of it up the flue. Its AFUE rating is the share that reaches the house, so an appliance rated 95% delivers 95 cents of heat for every dollar of fuel. It can never exceed 100%.

A heat pump does not make heat. It moves heat that already exists in the outdoor air into the house, and the electricity it consumes runs the compressor doing the moving. Because it is moving rather than making, it can deliver three or four units of heat per unit of electricity. That ratio is the coefficient of performance.

Nothing else enters the arithmetic. Not the size of the house, not the length of the winter, not the national average. Those change how much heat you need, and they cancel out of the comparison because both machines have to deliver the same amount.

This site rates the heat pump at HSPF2 11.0, a good cold climate unit, and then knocks it down for backup heat. HSPF2 divided by 3.41214 gives a raw COP of 3.22. Assuming 10% of the season's heat comes from electric resistance strips running at COP 1.0 brings the effective figure to 2.64. That is the number used on every page here.

What it costs per unit of heat in every state

The table sorts by how far ahead the heat pump is, best first. Both columns are the cost of putting one kilowatt hour of heat into the house, so they are directly comparable.

Heating season mean for 2025-12, 2026-01, 2026-02. Gas converted from dollars per thousand cubic feet at 1,037 BTU per cubic foot, then divided by 0.95 for furnace efficiency. Six states carry no gas price because EIA has not published a complete season for them, so they sit out this particular comparison and appear on the state index with the fuels they do have.

Where the heat pump wins, and why

The pattern is not about climate. It is about the ratio between two utility bills, and that ratio is set by generation mix, regulation, and how close the state sits to gas production.

The five best states for a heat pump against gas

The five worst

Notice what is not on the winning list: the states pushing hardest on electrification. Expensive residential electricity is exactly what makes a heat pump expensive to run, and several of the most active policy states have the most expensive electricity in the country.

Four things that change the answer

1. The furnace you are replacing

An older non-condensing furnace at 80% AFUE wastes a fifth of the fuel it burns. Replacing that with the same heat pump moves the breakeven from 2.78 up to 3.30, which flips several states. Read the plate on your furnace before assuming you are in the 95% case.

2. The heat pump you are buying

A builder grade unit at HSPF2 8.0 has a raw COP of 2.34 against 3.22 for a good cold climate machine. That single specification is worth roughly a third of the running cost.

3. Backup heat

The assumption with the largest effect and the least visibility. Electric resistance strips run at COP 1.0, and because you are adding up electricity consumed rather than averaging efficiencies, a small share of heat from the strips costs you a large share of your efficiency. Fifteen percent of heat from backup costs you 27% of your COP. This is covered in full in the field note on backup heat.

4. Your utility tariff

A growing number of utilities offer a reduced winter rate for heat pump customers. The state average used here does not include those, so if your utility has one, your real answer is better than this page suggests. Check before you decide.

The option this comparison points to

In the 33 states where gas wins, the arithmetic is not really arguing for keeping a gas furnace forever. It is arguing for running the heat pump when it is efficient and the furnace when it is not.

That is a dual fuel system, and it is the answer the numbers point at in most of the country, yet almost nobody writes about it. Above the crossover temperature the heat pump has a high COP and wins. Below it, the COP falls, the resistance strips would otherwise engage, and the furnace becomes the cheaper machine. A control that switches between them captures the better half of both.

Full treatment is in dual fuel vs a heat pump alone.

How this was checked

Fuel prices are pulled from the EIA public API and averaged over the most recent complete December to February window, using identical months for every state. Summer months are excluded deliberately. EIA's residential price is total revenue divided by total volume, and in summer the fixed monthly customer charge is divided by almost no gas, which inflates the apparent price by up to 114%. That error is documented in the corrections log.

The same rate file drives the calculator, every state page, and every table on this page, so the tool and the writing cannot disagree. Unit conversions were derived twice, once in dollars per unit of chemical energy and once in dollars per delivered BTU, and both give the same threshold.

No verdict is declared inside a 10% margin, because fuel prices move more than that between seasons.

What this page does not cover

Running cost only. This page says nothing about what the equipment costs to buy or install, what rebates or tax credits are available, what financing costs, or what either system does to your emissions.

It also ignores the largest single item in the capital comparison: a heat pump is also an air conditioner. If you would otherwise be buying a furnace and an air conditioner, you are buying one machine instead of two, and that can outweigh several years of running cost difference.

State averages hide real variation between utilities inside a state. If you have your own bills, put your own numbers into the calculator rather than trusting a state mean.

References

1. U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electricity Data Browser, residential retail price by state.
2. U.S. Energy Information Administration, Natural Gas Prices, residential price by state.
3. AHRI Standard 210/240-2023, Performance Rating of Unitary Air-Conditioning and Air-Source Heat Pump Equipment.