Domestic Environmental Support Programme (UFI)

Targeted funding supports sustainable projects that play a key role in shaping Austria’s energy and climate future. Every euro invested triggers substantial follow-on investments and lays the foundation for new innovations.

In 2025, the Domestic Environmental Support Programme

• supported 2,725 projects.
• triggered an investment volume of approximately Euro 873 million.
• committed federal funding amounting to Euro 172 million.
• generated Euro 707 million in added value.
• secured or created around 4,450 jobs.
• contributed to a CO₂ reduction of 409,000 tonnes per year.
• achieved annual energy savings of 386,000 MWh.

The "Renovation Initiative" included the funding programme "Phase-out of Oil and Gas", which has promoted the replacement of fossil fuel heating systems since 2018. In the area of space heating, there is considerable potential for avoiding climate-damaging CO₂ emissions, both through building renovations (funding programme "Renovation Bonus") and through the conversion of heating systems.

In 2025,

• 89,730 projects were supported, including around 66,095 heating replacement projects and around 187 business projects.
• an investment volume of Euro 3.5 billion was triggered.
• federal funding amounting to Euro 1.57 billion was committed.
• a CO₂ reduction of 524,600 tonnes per year was achieved.
• annual energy savings of 790,800 MWh were achieved.

In 2025, a total of 66,095 applications for heating system replacement were approved under the Renovation Initiative. The majority of the new climate-friendly heating systems were heat pumps (49%). A large proportion of the subsidised heating system conversions now use biomass (41%). Around 10% of all funding applicants switched to district heating or local heating networks. Most of the replaced systems were oil-fired boilers (46%), followed by natural gas heating systems (38%) and multi-fuel/coal/coke heating systems (13%). In 3% of the funded cases, electric heating systems were replaced.