Incentives
Does my system qualify? The efficiency thresholds
The rating on a proposal is usually the outdoor unit’s best case. Programs test the certificate for the exact combination installed. They often differ.
Written by HYRE HVAC Research Desk Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
The direct answer
No single efficiency threshold exists: DOE sets the legal minimum, ENERGY STAR sets certification criteria, and CEE publishes tiers many utilities use. Each program picks one.
The rating that counts belongs to the matched outdoor unit, coil and air handler, not the outdoor unit alone.
You can only tell whether a system qualifies once you have every model number and the certificate for that combination.
Which rating does a program actually test?
The Department of Energy sets the legal minimum in 10 CFR § 430.32(c) — below it, equipment may not lawfully be manufactured, and for air conditioners in two regions it may not lawfully be installed.
The EPA sets the ENERGY STAR certification criteria, which sit above the legal minimum. The Consortium for Energy Efficiency publishes the tiers a great many utility programs write into their eligibility rules. A program may adopt any of them, or none.
The more useful answer is about which rating counts: SEER2, EER2 and HSPF2 are certified for a matched combination — a specific outdoor unit with a specific indoor coil and air handler — and not for the outdoor unit alone. Change the coil and the rating changes.
So the question “does my system qualify” has an answer only once you have the model numbers of every part of the combination and the certificate that covers that combination. Anything before that is a forecast.
Three bodies, three thresholds, and only one of them is law
Confusing these is the most common reason a homeowner believes a system qualifies when the program has already decided it does not.
1. DOE — the legal minimum, in the Code of Federal Regulations
10 CFR § 430.32(c) sets the minimum efficiency for central air conditioners and heat pumps manufactured on or after January 1, 2023. This is not a certification or a badge: equipment below it may not lawfully be manufactured for sale in the United States.
HyreHVAC analysis: Because it is a floor rather than a target, meeting it proves almost nothing about a rebate. Every new system on the market clears it.
It matters here for a different reason — the separate regional rule below, which restricts what may be installed, and which can make an otherwise attractive quote unlawful in your state.
2. EPA — ENERGY STAR, a certification mark above the floor
ENERGY STAR criteria sit above the DOE minimum and are published openly by the EPA. They are the threshold most often adopted by programs that want a single, recognizable, independently maintained line to draw.
Source fact: ENERGY STAR is a certification, not an incentive. Certification does not entitle a household to any payment from anybody, and a program is free to require it, require more than it, or ignore it.
3. CEE — the tiers utility programs actually write into their rules
The Consortium for Energy Efficiency publishes tiered specifications and a directory it describes as “a centralized, up-to-date and verified source of central air-conditioner and heat pump performance data” and “a vital clearinghouse of information”, read September 6, 2026. If a rebate form asks for a “CEE Tier”, this is what it means.
We print no CEE tier threshold on this page: On September 6, 2026, CEE’s own residential heating and cooling initiative page returned HTTP 404 and library.cee1.org did not respond, so the tier values could not be read from CEE itself.
Numbers circulating on resale and contractor sites are not a substitute for the specification, and we do not publish an eligibility threshold we could not open at its source.
Take the tier from the program’s own eligibility document, which is the only version that binds anybody.
What the three ratings measure, precisely
SEER2, EER2 and HSPF2 are not interchangeable, they are not comparable to their pre-2023 predecessors, and a program will usually name more than one.
- SEER2 — Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio 2
- Cooling efficiency across a modeled season. The successor to SEER, measured under the appendix M1 test procedure, which applies a higher external static pressure than the legacy test.
- A SEER2 number is therefore lower than the SEER number for the same equipment, and a proposal quoting "16 SEER" against a program threshold expressed in SEER2 is comparing two different measurements.
- EER2 — Energy Efficiency Ratio 2
- Cooling efficiency at a single steady condition rather than across a season. 10 CFR § 430.32(c) states that EER "refers to the energy efficiency ratio at a standard rating of 95 °F dry bulb outdoor temperature". It is the hot-day number, and it is the one the southwest regional standard turns on.
- HSPF2 — Heating Seasonal Performance Factor 2
- Heating efficiency across a modeled season, for heat pumps only. An air conditioner has no HSPF2. Programs aimed at electrification generally set an HSPF2 floor as well as a SEER2 floor, because a heat pump that cools brilliantly and heats indifferently defeats the purpose of the money.
- AHRI Certified Reference Number
- The identifier for a certified combination — outdoor unit, indoor coil and air handler together — in the AHRI Directory of Certified Product Performance. It is the document a program uses to verify a rating, and it is the thing to ask for by name.
The rating belongs to the combination, not to the box outside
The certified rating of the matched combination decides more denied claims than every efficiency threshold put together, and it is almost never explained on a proposal.
Source fact: 10 CFR § 430.32(c) is written in terms of combinations, and it says which one is tested against the standard: “The least-efficient combination of each basic model … must comply with the applicable standard.”
A single outdoor unit is certified in many combinations, each with its own ratings, and those ratings can span a wide range.
HyreHVAC analysis: The practical consequence is that a headline efficiency figure in marketing material is generally the best case — the outdoor unit paired with a premium variable-speed indoor unit.
If the quote in front of you pairs that same condenser with a cheaper coil, or reuses the coil already in the house, the certified rating for the combination actually being installed may sit below the program’s threshold while the brochure number sits comfortably above it. Nothing on the proposal will say so.
Recommendation: Before you sign, ask for the model numbers of the outdoor unit, the indoor coil and the air handler, and the AHRI Certified Reference Number for that combination.
Then look the reference number up yourself in the AHRI Directory of Certified Product Performance at ahridirectory.org, which is free and public.
If a contractor cannot supply a reference number for the exact combination they are proposing, that is the answer to whether it qualifies — you cannot claim against a rating nobody has certified.
This is also why the certificate belongs in the file before the old system leaves the property. The application guide covers which documents become impossible to obtain after which moment.
The federal minimum, by product class
The floor, not a rebate threshold. Printed because it is the reference point every other threshold is set above, and because a great deal of published material still quotes the pre-2023 SEER figures.
| Product class | SEER2 | HSPF2 |
|---|---|---|
| Split systems — air conditioners | 13.4 | — |
| Split systems — heat pumps | 14.3 | 7.5 |
| Single-package units — air conditioners | 13.4 | — |
| Single-package units — heat pumps | 13.4 | 6.7 |
| Small-duct, high-velocity systems | 12 | 6.1 |
| Space-constrained products — air conditioners | 11.7 | — |
| Space-constrained products — heat pumps | 11.9 | 6.3 |
10 CFR § 430.32(c)(5), equipment manufactured on or after January 1, 2023. Read from the eCFR versioner API as in force September 1, 2026.
These are manufacture standards. They tell you what may be built, not what may be installed where you live — which is a separate rule, below.
The rule that can make a legal system illegal in your state
A second, higher standard applies to what may be installed in two regions. It reaches air conditioners only, and almost nothing written for homeowners mentions it.
| Product class | Southeast | Southwest |
|---|---|---|
| Split-system air conditioners under 45,000 Btu/hr | 14.3 | 14.3 SEER2 with 11.7 EER2 below 15.2 SEER2, or 9.8 EER2 at 15.2 SEER2 and above |
| Split-system air conditioners 45,000 Btu/hr and over | 13.8 | 13.8 SEER2 with 11.2 EER2 below 15.2 SEER2, or 9.8 EER2 at 15.2 SEER2 and above |
| Single-package air conditioners | — | 10.6 EER2 |
10 CFR § 430.32(c)(6), equipment installed on or after January 1, 2023.
“Southeast” is Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Territories.
“Southwest” is Arizona, California, Nevada, and New Mexico. Read from the eCFR as in force September 1, 2026.
The operative sentence: “Any model of outdoor unit that has a certified combination with a rating below the applicable standard level(s) for a region cannot be installed in that region.”
The regional installation standard in (c)(6) reaches product classes (i) and (iii) only — split-system and single-package air conditioners. Heat pumps are not subject to it.
Our study of the regional split covers what this has done to the equipment market on either side of the line.
Where ENERGY STAR draws its line for heat pumps
A certification threshold, published by the EPA, above the federal floor. A rebate program may adopt it as its eligibility test — many do — or set its own.
| Category | Certification criteria |
|---|---|
| Split systems | ≥ 15.2 SEER2 / ≥ 11.0 EER2 / ≥ 7.8 HSPF2 |
| Single package units | ≥ 15.2 SEER2 / ≥ 10.0 EER2 / ≥ 7.2 HSPF2 |
| Cold climate, non-ducted split systems | ≥ 15.2 SEER2 / ≥ 8.5 HSPF2 |
| Cold climate, ducted split systems | ≥ 15.2 SEER2 / ≥ 8.1 HSPF2 |
| Cold climate, single package equipment | ≥ 15.2 SEER2 / ≥ 8.1 HSPF2 |
ENERGY STAR key product criteria, air-source heat pumps, retrieved September 6, 2026.
Note the cold-climate designations: the SEER2 floor is unchanged and the HSPF2 floor rises. That is the certification saying, in numbers, that the hard part of a cold-climate heat pump is the heating and not the cooling. Our cold-climate performance study covers what happens to capacity below the rating conditions.
How to establish whether your quoted system qualifies, in order
Each step produces a document. If a step cannot produce one, that is a finding, and it is cheaper to have it now than after the installation.
Not a summary and not a contractor’s description of it. The document that names the rating, the threshold and the effective date. If a program tests against a CEE tier, the tier number is in that document and it governs — no third-party table substitutes for it.
SEER2, EER2, HSPF2, a CEE tier, ENERGY STAR certification, or a combination. A specification that names two ratings requires both, not either. And check whether it is expressed in SEER2 or in legacy SEER — those are different measurements and a system can clear one and fail the other.
Outdoor unit, indoor coil, air handler or furnace. A proposal listing only the condenser model is not enough information to answer the question, and asking for the rest is a reasonable request that a competent installer will meet immediately.
The AHRI Directory is free and public. Verify that the certified combination in the directory is the combination on your proposal, and that its ratings clear the program’s thresholds. Save or print the certificate — most programs will ask for it.
For a split-system air conditioner, 10 CFR § 430.32(c)(6) is a legal constraint on installation and not only a rebate question. A combination below the regional level cannot lawfully be installed there.
Two quotes are comparable once you know both combinations, both certified ratings and whether each clears the program. The quote comparison tool covers the rest of what makes proposals hard to compare.
A note on the federal credit’s equipment rules, which no longer apply
Source fact: A great deal of the equipment-qualification writing on the web describes the rules that governed 26 U.S.C. § 25C, the Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit.
Those rules included a product identification requirement quoted by the IRS as: “In 2025, for each item of qualifying property placed in service, no credit will be allowed unless the item was produced by a qualified manufacturer and the taxpayer reports the Qualified Manufacturer Identification Number (QMID) for the item on their tax return.”
They are not a live test for a 2026 installation: 26 U.S.C. § 25C(i) now reads: “This section shall not apply with respect to any property placed in service after December 31, 2025.”
The IRS has confirmed the reporting machinery behind it has been stood down:
“No. Because of the accelerated termination of the section 25C credit, periodic written reports, including reporting for property placed in service before January 1, 2026, are no longer required.”
“A manufacturer is still required to register with the IRS to become a qualified manufacturer for its specified property to be eligible for the credit.”
Both read September 5, 2026. The federal credit page carries the full statutory position.
HyreHVAC analysis: This matters for equipment selection in a specific way: a system chosen because it carried a QMID, or because it met the credit’s efficiency tier, was chosen against a test that no longer exists.
The live tests are the ones your state program and your utility publish, and they are not the same tests. Re-check the specification rather than assuming continuity.
Method, and when this page stops being trustworthy
Method: The federal minima and the regional installation standard were read directly from the eCFR versioner API for 10 CFR § 430.32(c) as in force September 1, 2026, not from an annual edition and not from a secondary summary.
The ENERGY STAR criteria were read from energystar.gov on September 6, 2026. The CEE tier thresholds were sought at CEE and were not retrievable on that date, and are therefore not printed.
Nothing on this page is an amount, and no rebate figure appears on it.
What would make this page wrong: An amendment to 10 CFR § 430.32(c) — the section has been amended many times and a single amendment can move a threshold silently — or a revision of the ENERGY STAR specification.
Scheduled review: December 2026, with the eCFR versions API re-checked at every review and immediately on any DOE rulemaking touching central air conditioners and heat pumps.
Questions
What SEER2 do I need to qualify for a rebate?
Is SEER the same as SEER2?
Why does the efficiency rating depend on the indoor coil?
Can I install any air conditioner I want in Texas or Arizona?
What is an AHRI certificate and why does a rebate program want it?
Does ENERGY STAR certification mean I get a rebate?
Do the old federal tax credit equipment rules still matter?
Written and audited by
HYRE HVAC Research Desk
Primary-source research, data analysis and fact checking
We are a research desk, not a sales floor. We read the federal microdata file, the statute or the manufacturer data sheet ourselves, and we publish the figure with the document it came from and the date we retrieved it.
Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we publish the shorter page and say what we could not verify.
The counts below are generated from the published pages themselves, last counted September 28, 2026, and they are what we have actually published rather than what we intend to.
- 13
- studies published
- 12
- federal sources read and cited
- 8
- studies published with their full dataset as CSV
- 51
- jurisdictions reproduced against EIA’s own tables
How this desk works
- Primary sources only. Federal data comes from the agency that collects it, in the file that agency publishes. We do not cite an article that cites a source; we download the source and compute the figure ourselves.
- We validate against the agency before we publish. First, we use each federal microdata file to reproduce the agency’s own published tables. Our cooling research reproduces EIA’s state estimates and standard errors for all 51 jurisdictions. That check caught a variance formula that was off by a factor of four.
- Every estimate carries its uncertainty. These are survey figures, not counts. Standard errors are computed from the replicate weights the federal file supplies and printed beside the estimate. An estimate too imprecise to publish is reported as such rather than printed.
- Nothing is typed by hand. Prose, tables and charts all read from one dataset built by script, so a number in a sentence and the same number in the table below it cannot disagree.
- We publish the data, not just the conclusion. 8 of our 13 studies offer the full computed table as a CSV download on the page, so you can check the analysis or disagree with it. A study without a row-level dataset gets no download link and claims none in its structured data.
- We correct in public. Where we have published a figure wrongly we fix the figure, rewrite any analysis that rested on it rather than patching the number underneath it, and leave a dated correction note on the page.
- We do not install or sell HVAC equipment, and we take no payment for placement, ranking or a favorable mention. Nobody buys a position on this site.
Data as of 10 CFR 430.32 as in force September 1, 2026; ENERGY STAR criteria retrieved September 6, 2026. Authorship on this site is organizational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold.
Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.
Sources & retrieval dates
This is not tax advice: HyreHVAC does not install, service or sell HVAC equipment, is not a tax adviser, and receives no fee from any incentive program. What is published here is the statutory text with the date we read it.
Tax law changes, and it changed here recently — confirm the current position at irs.gov and with a tax professional before you put any credit or rebate into a purchase decision, in either direction.