There is a phrase that recurs in every report on the energy renovation of homes, and it is not a slogan: you can spend a lot and not move the label. It isn’t the view of a petty taxpayer; it is the finding of the Court of Auditors, of Anah itself, and it rests on a starting choice — the single, one-off gesture.
The single gesture, the real engine of the system
In its examination of the incentives for energy renovation published in October 2023, the Court of Auditors quantifies the phenomenon: 73 % of funded cases involved a mono-gesture job, and within this block, the change of heating method accounted for three-quarters. In other words, more than one subsidized file out of two consisted of replacing a heating system, without any intervention on the building envelope.
The logic is understandable. A mono-gesture measure costs households less, is decided in a few weeks, requires neither an audit nor an project manager. It also yields flattering statistics: one completed file is one completed file. The problem lies elsewhere — replacing a boiler in a poorly insulated dwelling improves comfort and the bill, but it almost never suffices to move a dwelling to a higher category. The heat produced continues to escape where it always did.
The component aimed at the heaviest cases does not fare better on this point. Still according to the Court, 61 % of the thermal sieves treated by MaPrimeRénov’ Sérénité remained classified E, F or G after works. The explanation rests on a threshold: the minimum energy gain required before works was set at 35 %, a level the Court deems insufficient to move a dwelling out of the “sieve” status. We reached the step, but not the plateau.
The sums at stake
The financial volume, by contrast, is far from symbolic. By adding the energy transition bonus and the energy savings certificates, 6.95 billion euros were committed in the single year 2022 — versus 5.22 billion in 2019, i.e., a one-third rise in three years. Against this, the affected stock included about 4.8 million homes classified as thermal sieves.
It is this ratio between the amount and the measured result that triggered the reform, rather than a scandal of management: the money did go to real works, carried out by real companies. The question posed by the Court is not “where did the money go,” but “what was it conditioned on?”
The problem that is less discussed: the reliability of the thermometer
A mechanism that judges a building by a jump in DPE class presupposes that the DPE is reliable. This is precisely what the Court of Auditors challenged two years later. On June 3, 2025, it published a report of rare severity on the public management of the energy performance diagnosis. The figure that emerges is stark: in 2023, 70% of the establishments inspected showed at least one anomaly, according to checks conducted by the Directorate General for Competition, Consumption and Fraud Control (DGCCRF).
Be careful with the exact meaning of this figure: it concerns the establishments inspected by the DGCCRF, not all diagnostics performed in France. And the DGCCRF’s action focuses mainly on the labeling, abusive clauses, and commercial independence; the technical quality of the diagnostic remains outside its remit. The anomalies found are therefore largely consumer-law breaches: lack of price information, failure to honor the withdrawal period, abusive clauses. It is not 70% of false labels — it is 70% of professionals operating out of regulatory compliance, which is already significant for a tool that is now enforceable.
The Court highlights above all a structural flaw: half of the certifying bodies are structurally linked to the DPE operators, and only 0.08% of DPEs were checked by certification bodies in 2023. Its recommendations: a genuine professional registry for diagnosticians by the end of 2026, strengthened public information about remedies, in-depth statistical controls on diagnostic coherence, and the use of artificial intelligence to flag suspect values.
A collateral effect rarely highlighted: the stock of rental properties with F and G labels fell by 33% between 2021 and 2023, with rising pressure on rents and difficulties in housing access for low-income households. The Court also criticizes the State for having conducted no comprehensive upfront impact study on the effects of the 2021 DPE reform.
Where the scheme stands in 2026
Contrary to what is sometimes read, MaPrimeRénov’ is no longer the scheme described in 2023. Three changes matter.
Focus on large-scale renovation. In 2026, the program prioritizes comprehensive renovation: combining several works — insulation, ventilation, heating, hot water — to achieve an improvement of at least 2 DPE classes, based on a prior energy audit, with mandatory guidance by a Mon Accompagnateur Rénov’. The schedule applies rates of 80, 60, 45 or 10% depending on income, up to a cap of €30,000 excluding tax for a 2-class gain, or €40,000 excluding tax for 3 classes or more.
The narrowing of the mono-gesture. Since January 1, 2026, two types of work have been removed from the single-gesture pathway (Decree 2025-956 of September 8, 2025): wall insulation and biomass boilers, now only fundable within an expansion renovation. Windows remain eligible only for replacing single glazing. Owners of F or G-rated properties can still request assistance for a single gesture until December 31, 2026; from January 1, 2027, these passoires must obligatorily switch to the large-scale renovation path.
The budgetary lull. Early 2026, lacking a finance law, the filing of new applications for aids distributed by Anah, including MaPrimeRénov’, was temporarily suspended — the files already approved were not reversed. Applications have since resumed, and the files approved before December 31, 2025 remain funded after work. This is the tangible translation of the “financial risk” the Court flagged in 2023: an agency caught between a stream of commitments and annually voted credits.
What remains to be decided
The refocusing addresses the fundamental problem identified in 2023: a single isolated gesture will no longer be subsidized in the hope of jumping a class. But it creates another, very real one for households. A large-scale renovation presupposes a remaining cost of several thousand euros, an audit, guidance, and credit. The blockage of financing for the remaining cost is described as the critical point of 2026. A more demanding system is a more just one in its effects — and potentially more selective in its beneficiaries.
The question raised by the June 2025 report remains, and it is the most troubling: the entire structure — incentives, rental prohibitions, property values — rests on a label whose production is hardly controlled. Before discussing the size of the bonuses, it will probably be necessary to ensure that the trigger measure itself is fair.
