Canada’s Greener Homes Grant Is Closed: What’s Available Now

The Canada Greener Homes Grant stopped taking new applications in February 2024, and Natural Resources Canada’s own program page now carries a one-word status: closed. If you found this page because you’re trying to confirm whether you can still apply, the answer is no, and the deadline for people who applied before closure to submit their final paperwork has passed too. What replaced it is the Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program, an income-tested benefit delivered province by province rather than directly by Ottawa, plus a separate Canada Greener Homes Loan that also stopped accepting new borrowers. This guide covers what ended, what’s live right now, and where a Toronto or GTA homeowner can find retrofit money today. For everything else that comes with owning in the city, see our complete Toronto real estate guide, and for other owner-specific topics, browse the rest of our guides.

Is the Canada Greener Homes Grant still accepting applications

No. Natural Resources Canada announced on February 5, 2024 that the grant portion of the Canada Greener Homes Initiative was closing its intake window within about two weeks, after demand ran well ahead of the funding set aside for it. NRCan’s own Ontario program page now carries the heading “Closed” for exactly this reason. If you’re seeing the grant mentioned on a contractor’s website, a blog post, or an older government page that still describes it as open, that content hasn’t been updated since early 2024. The grant itself, the direct reimbursement for retrofits like insulation, heat pumps, windows and doors, is not coming back under its original name, and there’s no waitlist or reopening date announced.

This matters for anyone evaluating a resale property’s retrofit potential too. If a listing or a previous owner mentions “Greener Homes Grant eligible” as a selling point, treat that as a dated reference to a program that no longer exists in that form, not as money still on the table for a new owner.

What happened to applications submitted before closure

If you applied before the window closed, your file was still processed, but that window has also now shut. The national deadline for submitting the paperwork and invoices needed to collect your grant payment was December 31, 2025, and requests filed after that date aren’t being paid out. Quebec ran on its own, earlier timeline, with a September 30, 2025 cutoff for that province’s version of the program. In both cases, the cutoff applied to finishing the claim, not to starting a new one. If you had an open file and missed the deadline, the grant for that retrofit is gone; there’s no appeal process described anywhere in NRCan’s own materials, and nothing suggests one is coming.

Anyone who completed the full process before their deadline, including the required pre- and post-retrofit EnerGuide evaluations, should have already received their payment. If you’re still waiting on a payment for a claim filed well before the deadline, that’s a service issue to raise directly with NRCan, not a sign the program is still accepting new files.

The Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program

This is the program worth a homeowner’s time right now, and it works differently from the grant it replaced. Instead of homeowners paying for retrofits and claiming money back, the Affordability Program is described by NRCan as delivering no-cost home retrofits directly, with the federal government funding provincial and territorial partners to run the applications and installations. Ottawa doesn’t take applications from individual households at all. You apply through whichever provincial or territorial program covers your area, and eligibility is income-tested: the program targets low- to median-income households, and unlike the original grant, tenants qualify alongside homeowners, not just people who own their home outright.

As of this writing, Ontario is not yet one of the participating provinces. Manitoba was first, with its Crown utility Efficiency Manitoba delivering the program there starting in September 2025. NRCan’s own backgrounder from June 2026 confirms Quebec, British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island joined next, backed by more than $500 million in combined federal and provincial funding aimed at over 35,000 households. That’s five provinces live. Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan and the territories aren’t mentioned in any confirmed federal announcement as participants yet. If you’re a GTA homeowner hoping to apply, the honest answer is that there’s currently no live Ontario intake under this specific program, and the only way to know if that’s changed is to check NRCan’s Canada Greener Homes Initiative page directly before assuming you qualify.

The Canada Greener Homes Loan

The Loan is a separate product from both the closed grant and the Affordability Program, and it’s worth not conflating the three. Where the grant paid part of a retrofit’s cost outright and the Affordability Program delivers a retrofit at no cost to an income-qualified household, the Loan was always financing: an interest-free amount a homeowner borrowed and had to repay, used to cover retrofit costs up front. NRCan’s program materials confirm October 1, 2025 was the final day to apply, so new borrowers can no longer get in. Anyone who already has an approved Greener Homes Loan keeps it on its original terms; that approval isn’t affected by the program closing to new applicants.

So three different things share the “Greener Homes” name and only one is still open to a new applicant. The grant is closed and its claim window has passed. The Loan is closed to new borrowers but still running for people who already have one. The Affordability Program is open, but only in the five provinces listed above, and Ontario isn’t one of them yet.

Does an EnerGuide evaluation still factor in

Under the old grant, a homeowner paid for a pre-retrofit and a post-retrofit EnerGuide home energy evaluation out of pocket, then could recover up to $600 combined for both, but only after completing the full process and installing at least one eligible retrofit. That reimbursement model doesn’t carry over automatically to the Affordability Program. NRCan describes the Affordability Program’s retrofits as no-cost to a qualifying household, delivered through the relevant province’s own process, which points toward the evaluation being bundled into that no-cost delivery rather than paid upfront and reimbursed later the way it worked under the grant. The exact mechanics (whether an EnerGuide evaluation happens at all, and who arranges it) depend on the specific provincial program you’d apply through, since NRCan funds the partnership but the province runs the application. If you’re in one of the five participating provinces, your province’s own program page is the source to check before assuming the evaluation works the same way it did under the closed grant.

A Toronto-specific option: the City’s own loan program

Separate from anything federal, the City of Toronto runs its own Home Energy Loan Program, known as HELP, and it’s currently accepting applications. It isn’t a grant and isn’t tied to income eligibility the way the Affordability Program is; it’s a zero-interest loan of up to $125,000 for retrofits like air-source heat pumps, window and door replacement, and insulation, repaid through your property tax bill rather than a separate loan payment, with terms running up to 20 years for projects that include solar, geothermal or a heat pump. Eligible properties are detached houses, semis, row houses, duplexes and triplexes, and low-rise buildings up to three storeys and six units, within the City of Toronto itself (the program checks for a postal code starting with “M”), and every owner on title has to consent to the loan. It doesn’t depend on Ontario joining the federal Affordability Program at all: a GTA homeowner inside Toronto’s own boundary can look into HELP today, independent of anything NRCan does next. Check the City of Toronto’s own HELP page directly for current terms, since a loan program’s details change, and only apply through toronto.ca; the City has warned that third-party sites have offered to process HELP applications outside its own channel.

For a GTA buyer weighing a resale property’s retrofit potential against building a new one, HELP is also relevant on the way in: a loan tied to the property through its tax bill is something to ask about on any home you’re considering, whether the previous owner used it or whether you’d be the one to take it out after closing. If retrofit financing is part of what you’re weighing on a specific property, our team can talk through what that looks like for a particular address; browse current Toronto listings while you’re at it.

Frequently asked questions

Can I still apply for the Canada Greener Homes Grant?

No. The grant portion of the Canada Greener Homes Initiative stopped accepting new applications in February 2024, after Natural Resources Canada announced the intake window would close within roughly two weeks due to demand exceeding the funding available. NRCan’s own program pages now carry a “Closed” status, and there’s no waitlist, reopening date or appeals process described anywhere in the program’s current materials. If a contractor, blog post or older government page still describes the grant as accepting applications, that content predates the February 2024 closure and shouldn’t be relied on. What replaced it for income-qualified households is the Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program, which works differently and isn’t yet available in every province.

I applied before the grant closed. Can I still get paid?

Only if you filed your final paperwork before the deadline, and that deadline has now passed. Anyone who applied before the February 2024 closure had until December 31, 2025 nationally (September 30, 2025 in Quebec, which ran its own version of the program) to submit the invoices and completed EnerGuide evaluations needed to collect their grant payment. Requests submitted after that date aren’t being processed. If you had a file open and missed the cutoff, that grant is no longer recoverable through the program; there’s no exception process described in NRCan’s materials. If you completed everything on time and are still waiting on payment, that’s a processing delay to raise directly with NRCan rather than a sign the program reopened.

What is the Canada Greener Homes Affordability Program and do I qualify?

It’s the program that replaced the grant for most homeowners, and it works on a different model entirely: instead of paying for a retrofit and claiming money back, a qualifying household gets the retrofit done at no cost, funded federally but delivered through a provincial or territorial partner. Eligibility is income-tested toward low- to median-income households, and tenants can qualify alongside homeowners, which the original grant never allowed. The catch for a Toronto reader is geography: as of this writing only five provinces have a confirmed program running, Manitoba, Quebec, British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, and Ontario isn’t among them. You apply through your own province’s program, never directly through the federal government, so an Ontario homeowner currently has no live intake to apply to under this specific program and should check NRCan’s Greener Homes Initiative page for any change before assuming otherwise.

Is the Canada Greener Homes Loan different from the Affordability Program, and is it still open?

They’re different programs, and neither works the way the closed grant did. The Loan was always financing, not a grant: an interest-free amount a homeowner borrowed to cover retrofit costs and had to repay over time, and it stopped accepting new applicants on October 1, 2025. The Affordability Program, by contrast, delivers a retrofit at no cost to an income-qualified household in a participating province, with nothing to repay. Anyone who already holds an approved Greener Homes Loan keeps making payments on their original terms; that’s unaffected by new applications being closed. The two programs were never the same thing, and neither one is the grant that closed in 2024, so a mention of any one of the three doesn’t tell you anything about the status of the other two.