Texas HVAC marketing for the grid's busiest hour and your utility's rebate rules

Texas has no single heat pump rebate. Each utility runs its own program, and that program decides who gets paid and what your ad may say. So your rebate wording depends on whose meters your customers are on.

• Oncor, Dallas-Fort Worth: who is paid. Oncor's 2026 home energy efficiency program manual pays "registered, approved energy efficiency service providers". They pass the incentive on to the customer. High-efficiency central AC, heat pumps, ground source systems and mini-splits qualify. Repair and maintenance do not. The old equipment must still be in place when you apply.
• Oncor: the amount. The manual's caps run from $2,000 for a 2-ton system to $3,400 for 5 tons. Nothing is final until Oncor approves the production report. So an ad describes the incentive you will pass on, not the cap.
• Oncor: the wording and the deadline. The manual bars any wording "implying an endorsement". You take part in Oncor's program, and you never work on its behalf. Production reports close December 4, 2026, or sooner if the money runs out.
• CenterPoint Energy, Houston. Its 2025 Energy Efficiency Plan and Report, filed April 1, 2025, describes two routes. A standard offer program pays registered "project sponsors". A Midstream program pays HVAC distributors, who run their own programs for participating dealers. For many Houston shops, the first rebate call goes to the distributor rep, not the utility. The plan said CenterPoint did not plan any new programs for 2026. Get current per-unit amounts in writing before an ad names one.
• CPS Energy, San Antonio: who may install, and when. Its Save Now FAQ says "any contractor licensed within the State of Texas" may do the work, trade ally or not. The license number goes on the rebate paperwork. The program terms add three conditions. Applications are due within 30 days of completion. The job must be finished between February 1, 2026 and January 31, 2027. City of San Antonio jobs need permit information.
• CPS Energy: who is paid. Checks and bill credits go to the account holder, who may be a tenant. If that person signs a payment release to the contractor, the rebate must show as a credit on the invoice. That credit is the version an ad can present as money off the job. The heat pump page lists up to $310 per cooling ton, never more than the project cost. Confirm the offer is still funded before an ad quotes it.
• Austin Energy. Its air conditioning rebate averages $800. It is paid "when a participating contractor installs a qualifying system", and the contractor files within 90 days. The house and the system being replaced must both be at least 10 years old. Sizing follows ACCA Manual J or Austin Energy's own guidance. Participating contractors cannot receive the rebate themselves, so the directory listing is the ad. Word it as a listing, because Austin Energy says inclusion is not an endorsement.
• El Paso Electric. Its 2026 Texas rebate pays the customer, who may hire a licensed contractor or "do the work themselves". Documents are due within 45 days of the invoice. Funds go out first come, first served through December 31, 2026. Your ad competes with the homeowner's own weekend, so sell the sizing and the paperwork.

Program terms change every year, so read the current manual or terms page before a rebate ad runs.

Where you work in Texas decides whether you sell one season or two. The four largest Texas metros and El Paso share a state license and very little else about the weather.

NOAA's 1991 to 2020 normals count how much cooling and heating each city's year calls for, in degree days:

• Houston: 3,288 cooling degree days a year at Bush Intercontinental against 1,266 heating, with 51.84 inches of rain (NOAA). Cooling outweighs heating by more than two and a half to one. Maintenance plans and dehumidifier work carry the year, and CenterPoint's distributor route shapes the rebate offer.
• Dallas-Fort Worth: 2,824 cooling and 2,220 heating degree days at DFW Airport (NOAA). Heating comes to nearly four-fifths of the cooling figure, so furnace and heat pump work earns its own winter budget.
• San Antonio: 3,148 cooling and 1,438 heating degree days at the airport (NOAA). CPS Energy asks for permit information on City of San Antonio jobs, so pull the permit on every change-out inside city limits.
• Austin: 3,290 cooling and 1,442 heating degree days at Camp Mabry (NOAA), close to San Antonio's split. Austin Energy's participating contractor list decides who can offer its rebate at all.
• El Paso: 2,662 cooling and 2,206 heating degree days, with 8.78 inches of rain a year (NOAA). Dry air is where evaporative coolers work, and El Paso Electric rebates them. The heating side is about as large as Dallas-Fort Worth's.

Oncor pays more past the edge of the Metroplex. Oncor's manual adds 15% outside seven core counties. Four of them are Collin, Dallas, Denton and Tarrant, and the other three are Ellis, Johnson and Rockwall. A shop working the outer counties should say so on its rebate page.

So split the budget by metro. Houston, San Antonio and Austin buy cooling for most of the year. Dallas-Fort Worth and El Paso need a heating campaign each winter. El Paso also runs on its own grid and its own rebate.

Four things shape a replacement offer in Texas: the sales tax holiday, the cancellation law, the state's consumer protection law and the new refrigerant codes. Each one changes what your ad or contract should say.

• Memorial Day weekend is tax-free for air conditioners. Texas's ENERGY STAR tax holiday covers an ENERGY STAR air conditioner with a sales price of $6,000 or less. It runs from 12:01 a.m. on the Saturday before Memorial Day through 11:59 p.m. on Memorial Day. By our count of the calendar, the next one is May 29 to 31, 2027.
• Heat pumps never qualify. The Comptroller's guide to the holiday lists heat pumps among the products left out. Per the Comptroller, an installed central system sells tax-free only under a separated contract, with the air conditioner's total sales price at $6,000 or less. During the holiday, a contractor may also buy qualifying units tax-free for inventory.
• The three-day cancellation law depends on who called whom. Texas's home solicitation law, Business and Commerce Code chapter 601, does not apply to a licensed contractor's work "if the transaction involving the good or service is initiated by the consumer". That carve-out is in the air conditioning license law. The home solicitation law still applies to a breach of express warranty or a negligent installation that violates a building code. The federal Cooling-Off Rule is separate and is on our HVAC page. A replacement sold door to door and one the homeowner booked are different contracts. Keep two templates and have counsel approve both.
• A rebate cap is not a rebate. The state's consumer protection law bars hiding information known at the time of the sale when the silence was meant to win it. Picture an ad that quotes Oncor's top cap or CPS Energy's per-ton maximum. If it never says the amount depends on the system and the approval, it invites exactly that complaint.
• A2L refrigerant is now in the code. Since September 1, 2026, the codes TDLR adopts are the 2024 editions of the International Residential, Mechanical and Fuel Gas Codes and the Uniform Mechanical Code.
• Older codes did not. The ICC says the 2021 and earlier I-Codes did not allow A2L refrigerants in home comfort systems, and the 2024 editions do.
• Inside a city, the city's code governs. That is set out in TDLR's codes rule. So ask the permit office before an ad calls a system "approved". The honest line is "your new system uses an A2L refrigerant, and here is what that means for the install".