What Changed in the 2025 Energy Code?
The 2025 Energy Code applies to buildings whose permit applications are made on or after 1 January 2026 — so it is the code in force now. The Energy Commission highlights three themes: heat pumps, electric-ready infrastructure, and stronger ventilation.
When it applies, and to what
The trigger is the permit application date, not the start of construction and not the date the permit issues. Applications made on or after 1 January 2026 are assessed against the 2025 standards; applications submitted and deemed complete before that date fall under the previous cycle.
Since that date has passed, any new project is a 2025 code project. The practical consequence is that specifications, details and equipment schedules carried forward from a 2022-cycle project cannot be assumed still to comply.
Heat pumps, expanded
The Commission's headline change is expanded use of heat pumps in newly constructed residential buildings. This continues a direction rather than starting one — the code has been steadily reshaping its baseline assumptions around heat pump technology for space and water heating across successive cycles.
Electric-ready infrastructure
The 2025 standards encourage electric-ready provision in new construction. The distinction worth understanding is that electric-ready is not the same as all-electric: it means the capacity, circuits and space are provided so that equipment can be changed later without opening walls or upgrading a panel.
It is a low-cost measure at construction and an expensive one to retrofit, which is exactly the kind of provision a building code is well placed to require.
Ventilation, strengthened across building types
Ventilation requirements were tightened across building types rather than in one sector. This is the change most likely to affect a nonresidential project's mechanical design, and it lands on a part of the code that also carries acceptance testing — so a ventilation change can pull a field test in behind it.
Beyond the headlines
The three themes above are the Commission's own summary, not the full extent of the cycle. Individual sections moved in ways that matter a great deal to particular projects without making a summary — daylighting control thresholds came down, and the nonresidential solar calculation inputs changed. A project should be checked against the current sections rather than against a change list.
What to do about it
Confirm which cycle your project falls under, then check the specific requirements that touch your scope rather than assuming carried-forward details still work. Cool roof values, for instance, did not change between 2022 and 2025 — but that is an exception worth knowing rather than a rule worth assuming.