Why New AC Quotes Jumped: The 2025 Refrigerant Change, Explained
Published 2026-09-11If a neighbor replaced their air conditioner in 2023 and you collected quotes this year, the gap is not just inflation. The refrigerant inside residential systems changed by rule on January 1, 2025, and the equipment built for the new refrigerants costs more. Here is what happened and how it lands on your quote.
What changed
Under the AIM Act, the EPA required that new residential air conditioners and heat pumps manufactured from January 1, 2025 use refrigerants with a global warming potential below 700. That ruled out R-410A, the refrigerant in almost every system installed between about 2010 and 2024. Manufacturers moved to two replacements: R-454B (most US brands) and R-32 (several others). Split systems built from pre-2025 R-410A components could still be installed through the end of 2025; new installations since then use the new refrigerants.
Both are classified A2L: mildly flammable, with a low burning velocity. That classification is why the equipment changed rather than just the gas inside it. A2L systems carry leak sensors and mitigation controls in the indoor unit, use new line-set and charging practices, and technicians need different cylinders, recovery machines, and training.
Why the quote is higher
- Equipment prices. By most contractor accounts, list prices for the new-refrigerant models came in roughly 10 to 20 percent above the R-410A models they replaced, on top of ordinary annual increases.
- No partial swaps. The new refrigerants are not approved for retrofit into R-410A systems, and an R-454B condenser cannot be paired with an R-410A indoor coil. Replacing the outdoor unit now means replacing the coil, and often the air handler, so a job that used to be "condenser only" is a full system.
- A shortage year. Through spring and summer 2025, R-454B cylinders were in short supply, and contractors passed the scramble through in service pricing. Supply improved through 2026, but the refrigerant itself still costs more per pound than R-410A did.
- Contractor overhead. Training, tools, and the mitigation hardware are real costs, spread across every 2025 and 2026 install.
Our HVAC cost tables reflect this: the central AC replacement and heat pump rows are computed from cost guides retrieved in 2026, not from pre-transition prices, so the localized figures for Dallas, Mesa, or Kansas City already include it.
If you own an R-410A system
Nothing about the rule touches existing equipment. Your system can run, be repaired, and be recharged with R-410A for as long as it lasts. Two things do change over time:
- Refrigerant price. R-410A production is being phased down on a schedule (the same law cuts allowed HFC production in steps through the 2030s), so a recharge will cost more each year, the way R-22 did after its own phase-out. A small top-up today is fine; a system that needs pounds of refrigerant every season is telling you something.
- Parts and matched components. Manufacturers keep making R-410A service parts, but R-410A coils and condensers are becoming special-order items. If a major R-410A component fails on a system past ten years, the honest comparison is against a full new system, not a like-for-like part. See repair or replace for how to run that math.
If you own an R-22 system
R-22 has not been manufactured or imported in the United States since 2020; what remains is reclaimed supply at prices that climb every year. A leak on an R-22 system is a replacement decision, not a repair, and it has been since before this transition.
What to ask on a 2026 quote
- Which refrigerant the equipment uses. R-454B or R-32 are the expected answers; an R-410A system on a new-install quote needs an explanation of where it came from.
- Whether the price includes the indoor coil and any air-handler work, since it almost always has to.
- Whether the technicians are A2L-trained and the mitigation sensors are included, not optional.
- A load calculation (Manual J). The new refrigerants changed nothing about sizing, and oversizing is still the most common installation error.
The refrigerant change is why the floor under AC pricing moved. It is not a reason to accept the first quote: the spread between bids in the same metro is still the largest lever you control.