Ground source heat grants 2026 – what support do detached houses and housing companies really get?

There is a ground source heat quote on the table, and the total runs to tens of thousands of euros. Many hope that part of it will come back as a grant – after all, the internet talks about ground source heat subsidies worth thousands of euros. The answer depends on who carries out the project: for a detached house owner, the most important support is the household expenses credit; a housing company can get Varke’s energy grant – but only if it gives up oil or gas heating. In this article we go through what support for ground source heat is really available in 2026, calculate an example of the household expenses credit and look at whether ground source heat pays off even without a grant.

Can you get a grant for ground source heat in 2026?

Who	Support for ground source heat	Where to apply
Detached house giving up oil heating	Increased household expenses credit: 60 % of the labour share, at most €3,500 per person per year, valid until the end of 2027	Finnish Tax Administration
Detached house with other heating (e.g. electricity or district heating)	Household expenses credit: 35 % of the labour share, at most €1,600 per person per year	Finnish Tax Administration
Housing company giving up oil or gas heating	Varke's energy grant, if the E-value of the whole building improves enough	Varke
Housing company with district heating	Switching to ground source heat is not among the eligible changes of heating method; other energy efficiency measures may be	Varke (other measures)

There is no state ground source heat grant for a detached house owner in 2026: applications for the ELY Centre’s grant for giving up oil heating closed on 25.5.2026, and the new energy grant from Varke (the Housing Construction Centre of the Finnish State) cannot be applied for by private individuals. We have collected all the support options for a detached house in the article energy grants for a detached house.

What happened to the old ground source heat grants?

Online and on discussion forums, ground source heat subsidies that no longer exist are still circulating. That is why the information is so confusing:

The ELY Centre’s grant for giving up oil heating was at best €4,000 for detached houses when oil was replaced with ground source heat, district heating or an air-to-water heat pump. Applications closed on 25.5.2026.
ARA’s energy grants for housing companies were awarded in 2020–2023, and ARA was abolished on 1.3.2025, when its tasks were transferred to Varke. The ARA grants mentioned in housing companies’ ground source heat stories concern these earlier grant rounds, whose conditions differed from today’s.
Varke’s energy grant 2026–2027 opened on 28.9.2026. It can be applied for by housing companies and by owners of state-subsidised rental and right-of-occupancy buildings – not by detached house owners.

So if you come across ground source heat subsidy percentages or amounts, always check which grant and which year they refer to.

Household expenses credit for a ground source heat contract: an example calculation

In a detached house’s ground source heat renovation, the household expenses credit (kotitalousvähennys) is calculated only on the labour share: equipment and materials do not qualify, so the labour share must be itemised on the invoice. Drilling work also qualifies when it is invoiced as part of the labour share. The credit applies to a previously built home – it is not available for new construction. In 2026 the credit is 35 per cent of the labour share, at most €1,600 per person per year, and the deductible is €150 per person.

If you give up oil heating, the credit is increased: 60 per cent of the labour share, at most €3,500 per person per year, until the end of 2027. The condition is that the oil heating system is removed entirely and replaced with heating that does not use fossil fuel.

Example calculation: a €20,000 ground source heat contract in which, by our assumption, half – €10,000 – is labour. The labour share varies from quote to quote, so check it in your own quote.

Credit	One claimant (labour share €10,000)	Spouses (€5,000 each)
Basic credit (35 %, at most €1,600/person)	€1,600	€3,200
Giving up oil heating (60 %, at most €3,500/person)	€3,500	€5,700
For comparison: pending proposal (40 %, at most €2,100/person)	€2,100	€3,700

Spouses can each receive their own maximum, but the deductible is personal: splitting costs the second €150 deductible. Rule of thumb: split the credit between spouses only if one claimant’s credit would exceed the maximum. The Government has proposed raising the basic credit to 40 per cent and €2,100 retroactively from the start of 2026, but at the time of writing this is still only a proposal. The credit is not available if an energy grant has been awarded for the same change of heating method.

A housing company’s ground source heat project and Varke’s energy grant

In a housing company, ground source heat can receive Varke’s energy grant when the company gives up oil or gas heating. In that case, the costs of the change of heating method are fully eligible, and the grant is half of them. A hybrid solution also qualifies if it does not use fossil fuel.

The grant does not apply in the same way to a district-heated building: switching from district heating to ground source heat is not listed in the application guide as an eligible change of heating method. Other measures that improve energy efficiency may still be eligible – according to the application guide, for example ventilation heat recovery and apartment-specific air source heat pumps – but the line between a heating system and heat recovery is worth confirming with Varke before applying.

The grant conditions in plain language:

The E-value of the whole building must improve by at least 23 per cent in a block of flats and by at least 28 per cent in a small or terraced house, compared with the level at the time the building was built. A single measure receives no grant if the condition for the whole building is not met.
The grant is at most 50 per cent of the approved costs and at most €4,000 per dwelling.
Our own example calculation: for an oil-heated housing company with 30 dwellings, the grant is at most 30 × €4,000 = €120,000 for the whole project. In a switch from oil to ground source heat, the cap is reached when the approved costs are at least €240,000.

A shareholder cannot claim the household expenses credit for a ground source heat renovation commissioned by the housing company, because the work is the company’s maintenance responsibility and is paid for through maintenance charges. We have collected the application stages, attachments and payment in the article Varke’s energy grant and the course of the whole project in the article housing company energy renovation.

Does ground source heat pay off without a grant?

In 2024, Motiva (the Finnish state-owned energy efficiency company) calculated examples for two oil-heated detached houses:

Motiva's 2024 example	House 1: small 1990s house, Central Finland	House 2: fairly large 1970s house, Southern Finland
Purchased heating energy with oil	€3,050/yr	€4,450/yr
Purchased heating energy with ground source heat	€910/yr	€1,440/yr
Ground source heat investment (incl. removing the oil heating)	€23,000	€26,000
Payback time with the increased household expenses credit (for two persons about €5,100 / €6,300)	9 years	7 years
Payback time without the credit (our own calculation with the same assumptions)	about 12 years	about 9 years

The calculations use the price level of March 2024 (electricity 16 cents/kWh, heating oil €1.50/l), a 3 per cent discount rate and the assumption that oil heating’s maintenance costs are about €200 a year higher. According to Motiva, a ground source heat pump lasts about 20 years, so in these examples the investment pays for itself well within the equipment’s lifetime even without support. Motiva points out that replacing oil heating is most economical when the oil boiler is at the end of its life or its burner would need renewing. Investments vary a lot from property to property, and your own price only becomes clear from quotes.

Starting from a district-heated or electrically heated house, the calculation is different. In Motiva’s house 1, purchased heating energy cost €1,840 a year with district heating and €2,720 a year with water-circulated electric heating, so the savings are smaller than in an oil-heated house. In a house with room-by-room electric heating, ground source heat also requires building water-circulated heat distribution – more on this in the article energy renovation of an electrically heated house.

In the energy certificate, ground source heat usually shows clearly: the heat taken from the ground is not purchased energy, so the purchased energy and with it the E-value decrease. How much the class changes depends on the house – see how a house’s energy class is calculated and how to get a good E-value. If the heat pump options are still open, also compare the air-to-water heat pump.

How to proceed: from survey to application

In a detached house:

Ask for several quotes and make sure the labour share is itemised.
An energy well always requires a building permit – apply for it from the municipal building control authority before drilling.
If you are giving up oil, remove the oil heating system entirely so that the increased credit is possible.
Check your energy certificate with our energy certificate check tool and update it after the renovation if you plan to sell or rent. For data protection reasons, certificates of detached houses do not appear in the public search, so choose “Add your own energy certificate” in the tool. You can find our other calculators on the tools page.

In a housing company:

Find out the starting point and the repair needs – ground source heat is worth combining with other projects, such as energy design and other energy saving measures.
Have the E-value calculations made for the level at the time of construction and for the situation after the repairs: they show whether the grant’s 23 or 28 per cent condition is met, and they are mandatory attachments to the application.
Make the decision at the general meeting and apply to Varke at the stage its guidance specifies. More on energy certificates for blocks of flats in the article energy certificate for an apartment building.

We prepare E-value calculations for housing companies’ grant applications and payment claims – ask for an estimate. Detached house owner: if you want to know what ground source heat would do to your house’s energy class, submit a request for a quote.

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