Czechia 2026: heat-pump listings are still more R32 than R290

Czechia’s 2026 refrigerant mix in one number

Czechia’s 2026 heat-pump listings are still more R32 than R290: just 3.27% of listed models use R290, while 84.47% still use R32 in the 2026 snapshot (market_index_snapshot).

That is the core reason Czechia looks slow in the refrigerant transition. In absolute terms, the market snapshot shows 60,989 heat-pump models overall, including 537 R290 models and 13,935 R32 models (market_index_snapshot). The corpus does not include a Czechia-only EPREL listing count, so it is not possible from this dataset to state how many total models are listed specifically for Czechia, or how many Czechia-listed units are R290 versus R32 in absolute terms.

Even with that limitation, the direction is clear. A market where R290 remains a low-single-digit share and R32 still accounts for more than four-fifths of listings is not in crossover territory. Buyers browsing the wider heat-pump catalog, or filtering directly for R290 heat pumps versus R32 heat pumps, are still looking at a market structure dominated by the legacy refrigerant mix rather than the low-GWP shift.

How far Czechia trails the EU R290 shift

On the numbers available here, Czechia sits below where many buyers now assume the European market has moved. The 2026 market snapshot puts R290 at 3.27% of all listed models across the index (market_index_snapshot).

That is a very small share in itself, but it also matters because the corpus does not provide a separate Czechia-specific refrigerant-share table. So the exact percentage-point gap between Czechia’s own R290 share and the EU-wide share cannot be calculated from the supplied data. The same applies to any claim that Czechia is, numerically, a set number of points below the EU average: the corpus does not expose the Czechia-only refrigerant mix needed to compute it.

What can be said is narrower but still useful. Across the full market index, the refrigerant transition is visible but not yet broad-based in total model count: only 537 of 60,989 listed models are R290, versus 13,935 using R32 (market_index_snapshot). So if Czechia is described as lagging, that claim needs Czechia-specific listing data that is absent here. Readers looking for the broader benchmark can use the Market Index snapshot, the country comparison dashboard, and the refrigerants reference for the wider market context.

Nearby markets: who has already crossed over

The prompt asks how Czechia’s R290 share compares with Poland, Slovakia, Germany, and Austria, and which are ahead by at least 10 percentage points. That comparison cannot be answered with numbers from this corpus, because the JSON includes country energy-price and subsidy profiles for those markets, but no country-level refrigerant-share breakdowns for Poland, Slovakia, Germany, Austria, or Czechia.

So there is no defensible way, from this dataset alone, to rank those countries by R290 listing share or to identify which nearby market is ahead by at least 10 points.

What the corpus does show is that these nearby markets sit in broadly comparable heating geographies. Annual heating degree days are 3,539.76 in Czechia, versus 3,706.42 in Poland, 3,035.92 in Slovakia, 3,308.21 in Germany, and 3,309.19 in Austria (country_profile). That makes the missing refrigerant-composition comparison all the more relevant: these are not wildly different climate contexts. The right place to track that cross-country movement, when the underlying refrigerant-share data is available, is the 32-country comparison tool and the individual country pages for Czechia, Poland, Slovakia, Germany, and Austria.

Which model types and brands keep R32 dominant

The wider 2026 listing pool is overwhelmingly an air-to-water market. Of 60,989 total models, 30,452 are air-water, or 49.93% of all listings (market_index_snapshot). The next-largest segment is air-air at 21,065 models, or 34.54%, while heat-pump water heaters account for 9,228, or 15.13% (market_index_snapshot).

That matters for Czechia because the article angle is about a mainstream hydronic market still leaning on R32. But the corpus does not include refrigerant splits within air-water only, so it is not possible to state what proportion of Czechia’s air-water listings use R290 versus R32.

The manufacturer picture is clearer at the Europe-wide listing level. The market is highly concentrated at the top: Daikin Europe N.V. leads with 14,668 models and a 24.05% share, followed by Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V. with 5,575 models (9.14%) and JOHNSON CONTROLS HITACHI AIR CONDITIONING EUROPE SAS, SUCURSAL EN ESPAÑA with 5,207 (8.54%) (market_index_snapshot). Together, those three account for 41.73% of all listed models (market_index_snapshot). Expanding to the top five adds Bosch Thermotechnik GmbH at 3,602 models (5.91%) and Ariston SpA at 2,618 (4.29%), taking the combined top-five share to 51.93% (market_index_snapshot).

But the corpus does not provide brand-level refrigerant concentration. So it cannot support a claim about which manufacturer has the highest R290 concentration or the highest R32 concentration in Czechia. Readers can still inspect the major suppliers through Daikin Europe N.V., Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V., Bosch Thermotechnik GmbH, and the wider manufacturer directory.

What the Czech energy-price context says about the transition

What makes the Czech lag more striking is not a uniquely weak economic case for heat pumps. Czechia’s household electricity tariff is €0.3217/kWh and gas is €0.0961/kWh, giving an electricity-to-gas price ratio of 3.35x (country_profile). That is not especially favourable, but it is also not a clear outlier versus nearby countries.

Germany sits at €0.3869/kWh electricity and €0.1223/kWh gas, a ratio of 3.16x; Austria at €0.3272 and €0.1221, or 2.68x; Poland at €0.2709 and €0.0730, or 3.71x; and Slovakia at €0.1853 and €0.0608, or 3.05x (country_profile). Czechia is therefore in the middle of the regional pack on this measure, not at an extreme.

Subsidies are meaningful, if not especially aggressive by regional standards. Czechia’s two listed programmes both top out at €4,900: NZÚ Light can cover up to 100% of cost, while NZÚ Standard covers up to 50% (country_profile). That is well below Germany’s maximum €21,000, Austria’s €23,000, Poland’s €31,000, and above Slovakia’s €3,400 maximum (country_profile). For installers and household buyers checking current support levels, the relevant references are the Czech subsidies page, the wider subsidy index, and the subsidy calculator.

What this means for installers and buyers in 2026

The practical takeaway is simple: in 2026, the listing universe serving Czech buyers is still structurally R32-heavy, with 84.47% of listed models using R32 and only 3.27% using R290 in the available snapshot (market_index_snapshot). That does not mean R290 is absent. It means the low-GWP transition is still too narrow in model-count terms to describe the market as having turned.

For installers, that points to a split market. Training, stock planning, and customer conversations still need to cover a large installed-base logic around R32, even as newer R290 propositions become more visible. For buyers, the question is less whether R290 exists than whether the available range in the relevant output, noise, and system format is broad enough for their project. The air-to-water heat-pump catalog, newest registrations leaderboard, and payback calculator are the most useful next checks.

The harder claims in the brief — Czechia-only model totals, Czechia-only air-water refrigerant mix, nearby-country R290 ranking, and brand-level refrigerant concentration inside Czechia — are not available in this corpus. What the data does support is a narrower headline: the 2026 listing landscape remains dominated by R32, and that keeps Czechia looking like a slower-moving market in the refrigerant transition.

Sources

market_index_snapshot — Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API. Snapshot: 2026-05-20.
country_profile — Eurostat tariffs (band DC/D2 latest); NASA POWER 30y normal; EEA grid CO₂; subsidies captured manually from official programme pages. Snapshot: 2026-05-20.