EU 2026: R290 now leads heat-pump listings, but country gaps are still wide

R290 has taken the Europe-wide lead, but by how much?

R290 now accounts for 53.7% of European heat-pump listings, versus 46.3% for R32, so propane leads by 7.4 percentage points across the live market snapshot for 2026-06-02 (market_index).

That is the headline shift: R290 is no longer a niche transition story but the largest refrigerant bloc in current European listings (market_index). The important qualifier is that the lead belongs to the live listing snapshot, not to EPREL’s declared refrigerant usage totals. In the declared-usage count, R32 appears 13,935 times, while R290 appears 537 times and close variants add only 3 more entries (R290A 2, R290a 1) (refrigerant_universe). So the market-facing snapshot says propane is now ahead, while the underlying declaration universe still looks overwhelmingly legacy-HFC-heavy (market_index) (refrigerant_universe).

That gap matters for readers using our market index snapshot, refrigerants reference, or the filtered catalogs for R290 models and full heat-pump listings. It suggests the transition is happening fastest in what is actively surfacing in today’s offer set, not yet in the long tail of declared EPREL records (market_index) (refrigerant_universe).

Which markets are already well past the tipping point — and which are not?

The corpus supplied here does not include country-by-country refrigerant listing shares, so it cannot support a numeric ranking of which national markets are above or below 50% R290, nor a count of how many major markets still have R32 as the plurality refrigerant.

What the corpus does show is that national conditions are highly uneven on adjacent variables that usually shape product mix. Household electricity-to-gas ratios range from 1.3 in Sweden to 5.11 in Romania (price_ratio), while maximum listed subsidies range from €2,750 in the Netherlands to €31,000 in Poland among countries with active programmes (country_compare). Climate also varies sharply, from 492 annual heating degree days in Malta to 5,039.96 in Norway (country_compare).

Those differences are large enough that a Europe-wide refrigerant lead should not be read as a uniform national transition. Readers looking for that cross-country context can still use the 32-country comparison dashboard, country index, and the climate-zones explainer, but the refrigerant-share ranking by country is not available in this corpus.

Where R32 still hangs on: the biggest national laggards

The corpus does not provide the country-level refrigerant split needed to name the highest- and lowest-R290 markets or calculate the leader-laggard spread in percentage points. It also does not provide country-level counts of where R32 remains the plurality refrigerant.

What it does provide is a clue to where R32 could be stickier. The overall manufacturer mix in Europe is still led by brands with very large installed listing footprints: Daikin Europe N.V. has 14,668 models and a 24.05% share, Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V. has 5,575 and 9.14%, and Johnson Controls Hitachi has 5,207 and 8.54% (market_index). Together, those three account for 41.73% of all listings (market_index). If a national market is dominated by the biggest incumbent portfolios, it is reasonable to expect a slower refrigerant turnover — but the corpus does not quantify that country by country.

The same limitation applies to the requested comparison of brand mix between high-R290 and low-R290 countries. We have Europe-wide brand counts and average SCOP, but no country-level manufacturer-by-refrigerant matrix. For brand context, the manufacturers directory, Daikin Europe N.V., Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V., and Bosch Thermotechnik GmbH pages are the relevant catalog destinations.

Pricing explains part of the split: R290 versus R32 by market

The corpus supplied here does not include product prices by refrigerant and country, so it cannot answer the question about the average price premium or discount of R290 versus R32 models by market, nor identify where that gap is largest.

The closest available pricing signal is household energy tariffs. Those are relevant because they shape the operating-cost case for higher-efficiency units and, indirectly, the willingness of markets to absorb newer refrigerant platforms. On that measure, the spread is wide: the electricity-to-gas ratio is 1.49 in the Netherlands, 1.78 in France, 2.79 in Spain, 3.16 in Germany, 3.90 in Belgium, and 5.11 in Romania (price_ratio).

That means two countries can face very different commercial logic even before equipment pricing is considered. A buyer comparing an R290 catalog view with the broader air-to-water segment is not just comparing refrigerants; they are comparing technologies under very different tariff backdrops. But the equipment-price delta itself is not in the corpus.

Do brand portfolios and efficiency help explain the winners?

At Europe level, the brand table does show a split in scale and average efficiency. The biggest listing portfolio belongs to Daikin Europe N.V. with 14,668 models and an average SCOP of 4.44 (market_index). Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V. follows with 5,575 models at 4.51 SCOP, while Johnson Controls Hitachi posts 5,207 models at 4.18 SCOP (market_index). By contrast, smaller but still material portfolios include Bosch Thermotechnik GmbH with 3,602 models at 4.69 SCOP, Ariston SpA with 2,618 at 4.66, and Vaillant GmbH with 1,195 at 4.54 (market_index).

That matters because the Europe-wide average SCOP across the market is 4.55 (market_index). Several mid-sized portfolios sit above that benchmark, while some of the largest sit below it (market_index). If R290-heavy markets are being won by brands with tighter, higher-SCOP product stacks, that would fit the transition story — but again, the corpus does not give the country-by-country manufacturer mix needed to prove it.

For readers tracking the efficiency end of the market, the useful reference points are the top SCOP leaderboard, the air-to-water SCOP leaderboard, and individual manufacturer pages such as Ariston SpA and Vaillant GmbH.

What the tariff data says about where heat pumps can beat gas without subsidy

On tariffs alone, 23 countries in the dataset sit below the roughly 3.7 electricity-to-gas threshold, while 4 are above it and 5 have no gas ratio reported (price_ratio).

The most favourable ratios are Sweden at 1.3, the Netherlands at 1.49, Portugal at 1.73, France at 1.78, and Italy at 2.0 (price_ratio). At the other end, Belgium is at 3.9, the United Kingdom at 4.63, and Romania at 5.11 (price_ratio). Poland sits almost exactly on the threshold at 3.71 (price_ratio).

That is not a refrigerant ranking, but it is a useful map of where heat pumps have the strongest unsubsidised running-cost case. Several of the best tariff environments are also large western European markets, including France, Italy, and the Netherlands (price_ratio). Germany is less favourable at 3.16, though still below the threshold, and it combines that with a large maximum subsidy of €21,000 and a specific 5% bonus for natural refrigerant or ground/water source systems in BEG EM (price_ratio) (country_profile). France pairs a lower 1.78 ratio with support up to €11,000 under MaPrimeRénov’ for eligible geothermal cases (price_ratio) (country_profile).

So the Europe-wide R290 lead looks plausible in economic terms: most measured markets are still below the rough running-cost threshold (price_ratio). But tariff support is broad, while refrigerant adoption is clearly more selective. The missing piece is country-level refrigerant-share data.

Sources

market_index_snapshot — Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API. Snapshot: 2026-06-02.
refrigerant_universe — IPCC AR6 GWP table; EU Reg. 2024/573 phase-out schedule; EPREL declared codes. Snapshot: 2026-06-02.
price_ratio — Eurostat household band DC (electricity) / D2 (gas), latest semester. Snapshot: 2026-06-02.
country_compare — Eurostat · NASA POWER · EEA · Househeating Pulse subsidy register. Snapshot: 2026-06-02.
country_profile — Eurostat tariffs (band DC/D2 latest); NASA POWER 30y normal; EEA grid CO₂; subsidies captured manually from official programme pages. Snapshot: 2026-06-02.