Switzerland’s housing stock is becoming greener. In 2025 one in four residential buildings was equipped with a heat pump, six times the share in 2000. Among homes built over the past decade, the technology is already dominant: three-quarters use one. Yet oil and gas still heat half of the country’s 1.8m residential buildings.
The figures, published by Switzerland’s Federal Statistical Office, offer a snapshot of a housing system in transition. Oil remains Switzerland’s most common source of residential heating, used in 33% of buildings. But its share has been falling steadily for four decades. Gas accounts for another 17%, though its importance varies sharply with geography: 29% of buildings in urban municipalities use gas, compared with just 4% in rural ones.
Heat pumps are filling some of the gap. They are installed in 25% of residential buildings and in 30% of detached houses. Wood heats 12% of buildings and electricity 7%. The shift is clearest in recent construction, where heat pumps have become the norm rather than the exception.
Look at households rather than buildings, however, and the picture is less flattering. Some 58% of Swiss households still relied on fossil fuels for heating in 2025: 32% on oil and 25% on gas. Only 22% of households were heated by a heat pump. The discrepancy reflects the fact that one building can contain many homes, particularly in urban areas, where gas central heating is more common.
Heating systems vary markedly by canton, with a clear divide between urban and rural areas.
Compared with the rest of Europe, Switzerland sits in the middle of the pack. The European Heat Pump Association’s 2025 market report, covering 2024, counted 168 installed heat pumps per 1,000 households in Switzerland. That left it well behind the Nordic leaders: Norway had 632, Finland 524 and Sweden 496. Estonia was also far ahead, at 351, while Denmark had 217 and France 204. Switzerland nevertheless ranked above Italy, at 160, Austria at 127, Spain at 87, Portugal at 83 and the Netherlands at 79. Adoption was lower still in Czechia, at 70, Ireland at 69, Belgium at 66, Germany at 54, Poland at 48, Slovakia at 37 and Britain at just 19 heat pumps per 1,000 households.
However, Switzerland is unusually dependent on burning oil for heating. In 2024 oil and petroleum products supplied 12.7% of the energy used for space heating across the EU—data here. In Switzerland the comparable figure was about 28.1%. Reliance was highest in Cyprus, at 62.9%; Ireland, at 56.6%; and Greece, at 43.4%. But in several countries it was negligible: oil supplied just 0.8% of space-heating energy in the Netherlands and Sweden, 1.3% in Finland, 1.2% in Czechia and 1.0% in Poland. France was at 11.0%, Germany at 24.6% and Belgium at 32.2%.
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