Every October we wait for the same report. The Energy Information Administration puts out its Winter Fuels Outlook in the first week of the month, and it tells you, fuel by fuel, what the government expects the average household to spend on heat from November through March. The 2026–27 edition landed on October 6, and it’s a strange one: good news for most of the country, genuinely rough news for anyone heating with oil.
We sell heating equipment for a living, so we read this thing closely. Here’s what’s in it, what we think it actually means for your house, and what’s still worth doing before the cold settles in.
Table of Contents
- The short version: what EIA expects you’ll spend
- Heating oil is the sore thumb
- Natural gas finally catches a break
- Electricity keeps creeping up
- Propane: close to flat
- The weather wildcard: a very strong El Niño
- What we’d do about it, fuel by fuel
- If you’re replacing equipment anyway
The short version: what EIA expects you’ll spend
EIA’s forecast for average household heating costs this winter (November 2026 through March 2027), compared with last winter:
- Natural gas: about $640 for the season, down roughly 9%
- Electricity: about $1,196, up around 4% (this figure covers the whole winter electric bill, not just the heating portion)
- Propane: about $1,246, down around 3%
- Heating oil: about $2,115, up roughly 21%
Two caveats before anyone panics or celebrates. These are national averages, and your region can land a long way from the average; EIA’s own regional tables show natural gas households in the Northeast paying well above the national figure, for instance. And they’re forecasts of a typical home’s usage under expected weather. A cold snap that parks over your state for two weeks doesn’t care what the average was supposed to be.
Still, the shape of the forecast is clear. If you heat with gas or propane, the season should cost a little less than last year. If you heat with electricity, a little more. And if you heat with oil, you’re looking at the most expensive mainstream way to heat a home in America this winter, by a wide margin.
Heating oil is the sore thumb
A 21% jump in a single season is a lot, and it’s worth understanding why, because the reasons don’t look temporary.
Heating oil is a distillate, the same family of fuels as diesel, and distillate markets have been tight globally. EIA points to reduced refining activity and East Coast heating oil inventories running far below their five-year seasonal average heading into the heating season, and it expects stocks to stay well below average through the winter. Thin inventories plus normal winter demand is exactly the recipe for price spikes, which is why EIA’s forecast has oil prices up substantially per gallon on top of last year.
If that’s your fuel, the per-gallon price when your tank gets topped off in January is the number that matters, and nobody can promise you what it will be. What we can tell you is that oil-heat customers have been calling us all fall, and most of the conversations end in one of two places: a cold-climate heat pump that takes over most of the season, or a dual fuel setup that keeps the oil burner as backup for the coldest stretches. We ran the actual cost math on both in our October guide for propane and oil households, and the numbers in this new outlook only make that math lean harder toward the heat pump.
One honest note: a heat pump installed in December costs the same as one installed in October, but you’ll live through the install scheduling in December. If you’re on oil and thinking about it, think fast.
Natural gas finally catches a break
Gas customers get the best headline in the report. EIA expects the average gas-heated home to spend about 9% less than last winter, and the reason is simple supply: the agency expects natural gas inventories to enter the winter a couple percent above the five-year average, with production strong enough to keep them cushioned. Full storage going into November is the single best predictor of a calm gas market coming out of it.
Does that mean do nothing? No. Cheaper gas lowers the bill for every furnace, but a furnace running with a clogged filter, a lazy blower, or a miscalibrated gas valve still burns more than it should. A clean filter and a proper tune-up are cheap insurance, and if you want to squeeze the schedule itself, we wrote up whether nighttime setbacks actually save money just last week. Short answer: with a gas furnace, yes.
The other thing a down year is good for: replacing a furnace on your own schedule instead of the furnace’s. If yours is 15-plus years old, limping, or short cycling, replacing it in a cheap-gas winter beats replacing it mid-January after a no-heat call. We carry Goodman and Solace gas furnaces across the efficiency range, and the shoulder-season pricing and lead times are still better right now than they will be in six weeks.
Electricity keeps creeping up
Electric rates don’t spike the way oil does. They grind. EIA has the average residential rate up again this winter, a few percent over last year, continuing a run of increases that’s been going on for several years as utilities spend on grid upgrades and demand keeps growing.
What matters here is what kind of electric heat you have. A modern heat pump moves heat instead of making it, and delivers two to three or more units of heat per unit of electricity for most of the season. Electric resistance heat, meaning baseboards, wall heaters, an old electric furnace, or a heat pump that’s quietly running on its backup strips all winter, delivers exactly one. At this winter’s rates, that difference is the whole ballgame.
So if you heat with baseboards or an electric furnace, a heat pump is the single biggest lever you have, bigger than any thermostat trick. And if you already own a heat pump, make sure it isn’t leaning on auxiliary heat more than it needs to. A wrong thermostat setting or a failing outdoor sensor can quietly double a winter bill, and our fall heat pump prep guide walks through what to check.
Propane: close to flat
Propane households get a quiet year on paper, down a few percent nationally. Propane is still one of the pricier ways to heat per unit of heat delivered, and it carries the same winter risk oil does: you buy it in deliveries, and the price of a February fill-up is whatever the market says that week.
Our advice for propane homes hasn’t changed. Fill the tank early while demand is low, ask your supplier about fixed-price or budget plans before the season starts rather than after, and if your propane furnace is near the end of its life, run the dual fuel numbers before you buy another one. A heat pump handling the mild 60% of the season with propane covering the cold snaps is a combination that keeps winning on operating cost, and we covered how it works in our dual fuel guide.
The weather wildcard: a very strong El Niño
Every one of these numbers assumes roughly normal winter weather, and this winter has a thumb on the scale: forecasters are calling for a very strong El Niño. NOAA’s winter outlook, released in mid-October, tilts the odds toward a warmer-than-average winter across the northern tier and the eastern half of the country, with a wetter, stormier pattern across the South.
For heating bills, a warm-leaning winter in the Northeast and Midwest would be a gift, especially for the oil-heat households staring down that 21%. EIA’s own outlook assumes milder Northeast weather is part of why oil consumption drops even as the price climbs. But an outlook is odds, not a promise, and strong El Niño winters are famous for throwing one or two brutal cold intrusions even into an otherwise mild season. Plan for the pattern, prepare for the exception.
We went deep on what this particular El Niño means for heat pumps, defrost behavior, and regional bills in our El Niño winter guide back in September, and nothing in the new federal numbers changes those recommendations.
What we’d do about it, fuel by fuel
If you heat with oil
Price out a cold-climate heat pump or dual fuel conversion now, not in February. Lock in a delivery contract or budget plan with your oil dealer if one is still available. And don’t skip the burner tune-up; an oil burner running rich at this winter’s prices is burning dollar bills.
If you heat with gas
Enjoy the cheaper season, but bank it: fresh filter, tune-up, and a programmable schedule. If the furnace is old, this is a low-pressure winter to replace it on your terms.
If you heat with electricity
Resistance heat: get a heat pump quote, full stop. Existing heat pump: verify the aux heat isn’t running when it shouldn’t, keep the outdoor coil clear, and resist the urge to crank the setpoint up and down all day; heat pumps like steady settings.
If you heat with propane
Fill early, ask about price protection, and run the dual fuel math before replacing any equipment.
Everyone
Air sealing and a clean filter are still the cheapest heat you can buy. None of the equipment above performs to spec in a leaky house with a choked return.
If you’re replacing equipment anyway
A few practical notes from our side of the counter. Late October is the tail end of the shoulder season, which means equipment is in stock and installers still have open calendar. That changes the first week the overnight lows go hard negative, every year, like clockwork.
Size the system before you shop. An oversized furnace or heat pump short cycles and underperforms no matter what the forecast does; our free HVAC sizing tool gets you a defensible starting number in a few minutes. From there, we stock Goodman, Daikin, Solace, and MrCool across furnaces, heat pumps, and dual fuel pairings, with a clearance page worth checking for open-box deals. Orders over $99 ship free, and 0% APR financing through Affirm is available if spreading the cost out makes the winter easier.
If you’re not sure which direction the numbers point for your house, call us at (877) 843-4822 or email Info@BuyComfortDirect.com. We’ll tell you what we’d put in our own basement, and sometimes the answer is “keep what you’ve got and buy a filter.”
Forecasts change. Cold doesn’t. Whatever fuel you burn, the house that’s ready in October spends less in January.