Background information

Since July 2023 residents in houses can apply for grants to exchange their heating system if the current heating system is either using gas or direct-action electricity. One can apply for grants covering both the costs of exchanging the current system and the material costs.

The grant is paid out by Boverket – the Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning.

Content of measure

The criteria for getting a grant are:

• The house must be owned by the person applying for the grant
• The house must currently be heated by direct-action electricity or gas.
• The contractor must be a registered company (F-tax)
• The materials must be purchased prior to 8 November 2022.
• The grant can only be used to exchange heating systems, and does not cover previously unheated areas of the house

The grant can cover the following types of heating systems:

• installation of a waterborne or airborne heat distribution system
• connection to a district heating network
• installation of a controllable exhaust air heat pump, air-to-water heat pump, ground, lake or soil heat pump.
• the installation of one or more controllable air-to-air heat pumps in combination with either a water heater with an integrated heat pump or a biofuel heating device that is power controlled and allows for a continuous and automatic fuel supply.
• installation of a biofuel heating device.

Finally, the grant can cover up to 50% of the material costs, up to a maximum of SEK 30,000 (€2,680). The minimum grant is SEK 10,000 (€ 893), meaning that the cost of the work should be a minimum of SEK 20,000 (€ 1,786). The grant is applied for through the website of Boverket.

Use of measure

As of march 1st 2024 Boverket has recieved 19,354 applications and approved 3,456 applicatrions.

A total of SEK 108,063,826 (€9,653,774) has been approved, of which SEK 83,426,179 (€ 7,454,254) has already been paid out.

Most of the grant has been applied for in the Stockholm, Skåne and Västra Götaland regions, where the largest cities are located. However, adjusted for population, most of the approved applications are for residents in the southen region of Halland, the central region of Örebro, and the northern region of Västerbotten.

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Does not apply to workers	Does not apply to businesses	Other groups of citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
National government	National funds

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	Consulted	Consulted
Form	Any other form of consultation, institutionalised (as stable working groups or committees) or informal	Any other form of consultation, institutionalised (as stable working groups or committees) or informal

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• Only employers' organisations
• Main level of involvement: Sectoral or branch level

Involvement

The policy was sent out for consultation according to the standard processes where involved actors are allowed to submit written comments before the policy was handled in parliament. Only the employer organisations sent their comments. The following sent their written comments: Swedish Ventilation (sv. Svensk Ventilation) The Swedish Cooling and Heat Pump Association (SKVP) (sv. Svenska Kyl & Värmepumpföreningen) Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) SVEBIO

Views and reactions

Most employer/business associations were positive to the policy.

The Swedish Cooling and Heat Pump Association (SKVP) were positive without further comments.

Swedish Ventilation were positive, although submitted comments suggesting an expansion of the policy to cover additional isolation, exchanging windows, and left some comments notifying the government about the need to change ventilation systems when exchanging systems from a gas heater.

SALAR left additional comments, but were overall positive. They question if a grant should be given to air source heat pumps as they are profitable for consumers without a grant. They also stated that the grant could cover more than 50% of the costs.

SVEBIO, an association for bio energy use, were critical of the use of grants to shape markets and pointed to previous grants given to exchange oil heating that lead to a undesirable market outcomes (overheated market attracting non-serious actors)

Sources

• 29 February 2024: Bidrag för energieffektivisering i småhus (www.boverket.se)
• 06 March 2024: Bidrag i siffror – statistik (www.boverket.se)
• 02 June 2025: Subsidies for energy efficiency improvements in single-family homes [Bidrag för energieffektivisering i småhus] (www.boverket.se)