How much does it cost to run a heat pump per month?
The short version
- For an 1,800 sq ft home of typical construction: $61 a winter month in Arkansas at the cheap end, $479 in Maine at the expensive end, with a median around $183.
- The two things that set it are your electricity price and how cold your winter is. Nothing else comes close.
- The figures below assume 8 BTU per square foot per heating degree day, which is a rule of thumb. If you know your own annual fuel use, that is a better input and this page shows how to use it.
- Every state figure comes from EIA: residential electricity prices averaged over 2025-12, 2026-01, 2026-02, and ten year heating degree day normals by census division.
For a typical 1,800 square foot home, somewhere between $61 and $479 a month during winter, depending almost entirely on which state you are in. Most published answers give one national range, which is why they are not much use.
The short answer, and why the usual one is useless
Search this question and you will get a range like $50 to $150 a month. That range is not wrong, exactly. It is just so wide that it tells you nothing, because it is averaging a mild winter in Texas against a hard one in Michigan and a cheap electricity market against an expensive one.
Those two variables do almost all the work. Here is the same house in three different places.
| State | Electricity | Annual HDD | Winter month | Per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arkansas | $0.125 | 1,909 | $61 | $381 |
| New Mexico | $0.148 | 4,832 | $183 | $1,145 |
| Maine | $0.311 | 6,022 | $479 | $2,997 |
That is a spread of roughly 8 times between the cheapest and most expensive state, for an identical house running identical equipment. A single national figure cannot survive that.
How this is calculated
Four numbers, and I will show all of them rather than hiding the working.
- How much heat the house needs. Floor area multiplied by annual heating degree days multiplied by a heat loss coefficient. For an 1,800 sq ft home of typical construction I use 8 BTU per square foot per degree day.
- How cold the winter is. Heating degree days from the EIA Short Term Energy Outlook, using the prior ten year average by census division rather than last winter, because one winter is a poor predictor of the next. [EIA STEO degree days]
- How efficiently the heat pump converts electricity into heat. HSPF2 11.0 gives a raw COP of 3.22, reduced to 2.64 once 10% of heat is assumed to come from electric resistance backup.
- What electricity costs. The residential rate for your state, averaged over the 2025-12, 2026-01, 2026-02 heating season. [EIA electricity prices]
A better method if you have a year of bills
If you have your own fuel history, you can skip the estimate entirely and get a figure that is genuinely about your house rather than a typical one.
If you currently heat with gas
Take your annual therms, subtract what you burn in summer for hot water and cooking multiplied by twelve, and you have your heating therms. Multiply by 100,000 to get BTU into the appliance, then multiply by your furnace AFUE to get useful heat delivered.
Divide that by 2.64 times 3412.14 to get the kilowatt hours a heat pump would need, then multiply by your electricity rate.
If you currently heat with oil or propane
Same method. Multiply annual gallons by 138,500 for heating oil or 91,500 for propane, then by your appliance efficiency.
If you already have a heat pump
Compare your winter electricity bills against your summer ones. The difference is roughly your heating cost, and it needs no model at all.
The calculator does the arithmetic either way. Enter your own annual figure and it stops guessing.
Heat pump running cost, every state
An 1,800 square foot home of typical construction, a cold climate heat pump at HSPF2 11.0 with 10% backup heat. Sorted cheapest first.
| State | Annual HDD | Electricity $/kWh | Heat pump, winter month | Heat pump, per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arkansas | 1,909 | 0.125 | $61 | $381 |
| Oklahoma | 1,909 | 0.126 | $62 | $385 |
| Louisiana | 1,909 | 0.126 | $62 | $386 |
| Texas | 1,909 | 0.157 | $77 | $478 |
| North Carolina | 2,376 | 0.139 | $85 | $530 |
| Georgia | 2,376 | 0.141 | $86 | $536 |
| West Virginia | 2,376 | 0.146 | $89 | $555 |
| South Carolina | 2,376 | 0.155 | $94 | $588 |
| Florida | 2,376 | 0.156 | $95 | $592 |
| Virginia | 2,376 | 0.157 | $96 | $597 |
| Delaware | 2,376 | 0.166 | $101 | $632 |
| Tennessee | 3,118 | 0.129 | $103 | $645 |
| Kentucky | 3,118 | 0.136 | $109 | $680 |
| Mississippi | 3,118 | 0.144 | $115 | $717 |
| Washington | 3,271 | 0.138 | $115 | $720 |
| Maryland | 2,376 | 0.201 | $122 | $764 |
| Oregon | 3,271 | 0.147 | $124 | $772 |
| Alabama | 3,118 | 0.161 | $128 | $802 |
| District of Columbia | 2,376 | 0.239 | $145 | $907 |
| Idaho | 4,832 | 0.122 | $151 | $943 |
| Wyoming | 4,832 | 0.129 | $160 | $998 |
| Montana | 4,832 | 0.130 | $161 | $1,004 |
| Utah | 4,832 | 0.131 | $162 | $1,010 |
| Nevada | 4,832 | 0.137 | $170 | $1,062 |
| North Dakota | 6,274 | 0.112 | $180 | $1,124 |
| New Mexico | 4,832 | 0.148 | $183 | $1,145 |
| Nebraska | 6,274 | 0.117 | $188 | $1,175 |
| Missouri | 6,274 | 0.120 | $192 | $1,201 |
| Arizona | 4,832 | 0.157 | $194 | $1,214 |
| Colorado | 4,832 | 0.165 | $204 | $1,272 |
| Iowa | 6,274 | 0.127 | $204 | $1,277 |
| South Dakota | 6,274 | 0.131 | $211 | $1,317 |
| Alaska | 3,271 | 0.256 | $215 | $1,341 |
| Kansas | 6,274 | 0.146 | $235 | $1,467 |
| Indiana | 5,897 | 0.161 | $242 | $1,515 |
| Minnesota | 6,274 | 0.151 | $243 | $1,517 |
| Illinois | 5,897 | 0.171 | $258 | $1,612 |
| Ohio | 5,897 | 0.175 | $264 | $1,649 |
| California | 3,271 | 0.327 | $274 | $1,714 |
| Wisconsin | 5,897 | 0.183 | $276 | $1,723 |
| Pennsylvania | 5,399 | 0.202 | $279 | $1,744 |
| Michigan | 5,897 | 0.197 | $297 | $1,857 |
| New Jersey | 5,399 | 0.231 | $319 | $1,994 |
| Hawaii | 3,271 | 0.415 | $347 | $2,171 |
| Vermont | 6,022 | 0.233 | $359 | $2,241 |
| New York | 5,399 | 0.286 | $395 | $2,469 |
| New Hampshire | 6,022 | 0.264 | $407 | $2,541 |
| Connecticut | 6,022 | 0.281 | $434 | $2,710 |
| Rhode Island | 6,022 | 0.302 | $466 | $2,915 |
| Massachusetts | 6,022 | 0.308 | $475 | $2,971 |
| Maine | 6,022 | 0.311 | $479 | $2,997 |
The winter month column spreads 80% of the annual total across five months, which is roughly how heating degree days distribute in most of the country. Your own bills will be higher in January and lower in November and March.
How that compares with what you pay now
The number above is only useful next to what you are already spending. Against natural gas the comparison is close and often unfavourable, because gas is the cheapest common heating fuel in the United States.
| State | Gas furnace, winter month | Heat pump, winter month | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arkansas | $87 | $61 | −$26 |
| New Mexico | $0 | $183 | +$183 |
| Maine | $0 | $479 | +$479 |
Against propane, heating oil or electric baseboard the picture reverses and the heat pump wins comfortably nearly everywhere. Your own state page carries all four fuels side by side, and the comparison guides go through each one.
What actually moves your monthly number
In rough order of how much difference each one makes.
- Your electricity rate. The single largest lever, and it varies by more than a factor of three across the states in this table. If your utility offers a heat pump or winter tariff, that changes the answer more than any equipment decision.
- Your climate. Annual heating degree days run from 1,909 to 6,274 across these states.
- Your building envelope. The coefficient range in the calculator spans 5 to 12 BTU per square foot per degree day. A leaky house costs well over twice a tight one to heat, same equipment.
- Backup heat. Federal field measurements found auxiliary heat exceeding 35% of compressor energy at 5 of 12 monitored sites. [NREL/TP-5500-84745 (2023)] That is enough to add a third to a winter bill. See why heat pumps run auxiliary heat.
- The equipment rating. Real, but smaller than any of the above. HSPF2 8.0 against 11.0 is roughly a third more electricity for the same heat.
Common questions
How much does a heat pump cost to run per month?
For an 1,800 square foot home, between $61 and $479 a winter month depending on the state, with a median around $183. The two variables that decide it are your electricity price and how cold your winter is.
Is a heat pump cheaper than my gas furnace per month?
Usually not, in most states, on running cost alone. Natural gas is the cheapest common heating fuel per unit of delivered energy. Against propane, heating oil or electric resistance heat, a heat pump is considerably cheaper nearly everywhere.
Why is my heat pump bill higher than these figures?
The most common reasons are a leakier house than the typical coefficient assumes, heavier use of electric backup heat than the 10% modelled here, or an electricity rate above your state average. All three are worth checking before assuming the equipment is faulty.
Does a heat pump cost more in winter than in summer?
Yes, and by a wide margin in most climates. A heat pump moving heat into a house in January is working against a much larger temperature difference than the same machine moving heat out in July, and there are more hours of demand.
How do I work out my own number instead of using an estimate?
Take your current annual fuel use, convert it to delivered heat using your appliance efficiency, then divide by the heat pump's effective COP and multiply by your electricity rate. The method is in the section above and the calculator will do it for you.
How this was checked
Every figure in the state table is computed by the same functions the calculator uses, from the same rate file, so the page and the tool cannot disagree.
I sanity checked the output against the range that circulates in published guides, roughly $50 to $150 a month. The median state here lands at $183, inside that band, which is what I would expect if the method is sound. The value this page adds is not a different median, it is knowing which end of the range applies to you.
The heat loss coefficient is the weakest input and I have said so rather than burying it. It is a rule of thumb from standard practice, not something I measured, and the page offers a bill based alternative that avoids it entirely.
What this page does not cover
This is running cost only. Equipment, installation, rebates and financing are not here, and a heat pump also replaces your air conditioner, which belongs in a capital comparison rather than this one.
The estimate also assumes the heat pump serves the whole heating load. A partial installation, such as one or two ductless heads in a house that keeps its furnace for the rest, behaves differently and is closer to the dual fuel case.
References
- U.S. Energy Information Administration. Electricity Data Browser, retail sales and average price by state and sector, monthly. Series accessed through the EIA Open Data API v2.
- U.S. Energy Information Administration. Short-Term Energy Outlook, heating degree days by census division, prior ten year average series. Accessed through the EIA Open Data API v2.
- Winkler, J. and Ramaraj, S. (2023). Field Validation of Air-Source Heat Pumps for Cold Climates. NREL/TP-5500-84745. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. May 2023.
- Mendon, V., Keene, K., Rosenberg, S., Rotondo, J. A., Nwe, K., Young, J., Wind, W., and Goetzler, B. (2025). Performance Results from DOE Cold Climate Heat Pump Challenge Field Validation. PNNL-37127. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract DE-AC05-76RL01830. January 2025.
- Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute. AHRI Standard 210/240-2023: Performance Rating of Unitary Air-Conditioning and Air-Source Heat Pump Equipment. This standard defines the M1 test procedure and the HSPF2 metric.
Where these numbers come from
I want to be specific about this, because most sites that publish heating cost figures do not say where they got them.
I pull residential electricity and natural gas prices directly from the U.S. Energy Information Administration through their public API, using a script that lives in this project and that I wrote. It requests the same two series for every state: retail electricity price for the residential sector, and residential natural gas price in dollars per thousand cubic feet. Nothing is typed in by hand, and nothing is adjusted after it arrives.
I average those over the most recent complete December to February window, currently 2025-12, 2026-01, 2026-02, using the identical three months for every state, and this site covers 51 of them including the District of Columbia. Where EIA has not published a complete gas season for a state, the gas figure is left empty rather than estimated and every other fuel for that state is still priced. The state index names the six that affects.
I made a real mistake here on the first build. I took the most recent month EIA had published, which for gas resolved to May or June. EIA's residential price is total revenue divided by total volume, and in summer the fixed monthly customer charge gets divided by almost no gas, so the apparent price roughly doubles. I was answering a winter question with a summer number and it biased every verdict on the site toward the heat pump. Georgia's gas price was overstated by 114%. That is written up in full in the corrections log, and it is the reason I now average a fixed heating season window instead.
Everything downstream, the calculator, every state page, and every table in the comparison guides, is generated from that one data file. There is no second copy of the numbers and no hand editing, so the tool and the writing cannot disagree with each other.