TL;DR:

  • The Future Homes Standard now requires all new UK homes to include solar PV and low-carbon heating — effectively a heat pump mandate for new builds
  • Homes built under FHS must produce 75–80% fewer carbon emissions than those built to 2013 Part L regulations
  • For new build buyers, this changes the running cost calculation significantly — but there are also questions worth asking developers before you sign contracts

Britain has a habit of announcing ambitious housing energy targets and then watching them slip. The Zero Carbon Homes standard was due in 2016 and was scrapped. The Future Homes Standard has been in development since 2019. So it’s worth being slightly precise about where we actually are in 2026, rather than treating headlines as more definitive than they are.

Here’s the actual position: the Future Homes Standard took effect for new build planning applications from 2025 onwards. New homes permitted under those rules must meet significantly tighter fabric efficiency requirements and must use low-carbon heating — which in practice means air source heat pumps, ground source heat pumps, or connection to a heat network. Gas boilers are out. Solar PV is typically required to meet the overall energy target, though the specific combination of measures varies by plot and developer.

This is real and it is happening. It’s just happening at the pace of new planning applications and build completions, not retrofitted onto existing housing stock overnight.

What the Standard Actually Requires

The FHS doesn’t specify “you must have a heat pump and solar panels” as a checklist. What it does specify is an energy performance target — roughly 75–80% fewer carbon emissions than a home built to 2013 building regulations — and developers have to demonstrate compliance through SAP 11 calculations.

In practice, reaching that target almost always requires both better fabric (more insulation, better windows, reduced air permeability) and low-carbon heating. Gas-heated homes can’t meet the target because gas burning produces CO₂ regardless of how well-insulated the house is. Heat pumps, which move heat rather than generating it, achieve much better real-world carbon ratings when powered by the increasingly decarbonising grid.

Solar PV complements this by offsetting the home’s grid electricity consumption. A typical new build might have 2–4kW of solar on the south-facing roof, which covers a meaningful proportion of annual electricity use including some heat pump running costs.

What This Means If You’re Buying a New Build

The headline benefit is lower running costs — eventually. A well-specified air source heat pump in a well-insulated new build should cost significantly less to run than an equivalent gas-heated home, especially as gas prices remain volatile and the electricity-to-gas price ratio improves (or as smart EV tariffs and time-of-use pricing let you run the heat pump on cheaper overnight electricity).

That said, there are practical questions worth asking any developer selling an FHS-compliant home:

What heat pump has been installed, and what’s the manufacturer warranty? Heat pump quality varies considerably. Some developers are fitting premium units (Daikin, Mitsubishi, Vaillant Arotherm); others are using cheaper branded units to hit the minimum SAP requirement. The difference in reliability over a 15-year horizon is significant.

What’s the heat pump’s Seasonal Coefficient of Performance (SCOP) in the SAP calculation? A higher SCOP means more efficient heat delivery. Well-insulated FHS homes should achieve SCOP 3.0 or better, meaning three units of heat for every unit of electricity consumed. Lower values suggest either a less efficient pump or a home that wasn’t designed optimally around heat pump operation.

Is underfloor heating included, or radiators? Heat pumps operate most efficiently at lower flow temperatures, which suits underfloor heating (typically 35–45°C flow temp) much better than standard radiators (typically 60–70°C). If the home has radiators, check they’ve been correctly sized for heat pump temperatures.

What happens to the solar export? Under the Smart Export Guarantee, you’re entitled to a payment rate for electricity you export to the grid. Your developer should have registered the solar installation with an MCS certificate — without this, you can’t claim SEG payments. Ask for the MCS certificate number before completion.

The Iran Energy Shock Context

The government’s acceleration of the Future Homes Standard requirements was partly driven by the energy price volatility following the escalation of Middle East conflict in late 2025 and early 2026, which caused European gas prices to spike sharply. The political calculus shifted: reducing new home dependence on gas became a security argument as much as a climate one.

That context matters for understanding why the government is being more prescriptive here than it has been historically. The hesitancy about mandating heat pumps in new builds — worries about adding cost and complexity to an already-stressed housebuilding sector — has been overtaken by concerns about making every new home built in 2026 permanently exposed to gas price volatility for the next 30 years.

A Note on Retrofit

The Future Homes Standard only applies to new builds. It doesn’t change anything for the 28 million existing homes in England and Wales, most of which have gas boilers. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) continues to offer £7,500 grants for air source and ground source heat pump installations in existing homes, extended to 2030. That’s the lever for existing housing stock, and it’s a separate and slower-moving transition.

If you’re buying an existing home rather than a new build, the FHS is irrelevant to you directly. The Warm Homes Plan, Eco4, and BUS are the schemes to understand instead.

But if you’re in the market for a new build, you’re now entering a world where fossil fuel heating genuinely isn’t an option. That’s a meaningful shift from even three years ago.