Electricity has become a much more common way for Montanans to heat their homes over the past 25 years, even as gas remains the most widely used heating fuel, newly released federal survey estimates show.
Nearly 27% of occupied Montana homes relied primarily on electricity for heat in 2025, up from 16% in 2000, according to a Montana Free Press analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. Gas, which includes piped utility gas and bottled or tank gas such as propane, fell from about 72% to 64% of the state’s heating mix during the same 25-year period. The figures include houses, apartments and mobile homes, but exclude vacant residences.
The most recent numbers come from the 2025 American Community Survey, released Thursday, Oct. 29. They show how the balance of heating sources has changed as the state’s population has grown, though gas remains the main residential heating source in Montana by a large margin, fueling nearly two out of every three homes.
The estimated number of homes heated primarily with electricity more than doubled, from 58,000 in 2000 to 130,000 in 2025. Over the same period, the total number of occupied homes in Montana rose by about a third, from 359,000 to 481,000.
Electric heating includes baseboard heaters, electric furnaces, heat pumps and portable space heaters. Because the survey records a residence’s primary heating fuel rather than heating equipment, the figures don’t distinguish between heating systems.
Gas-heated homes also became more numerous over the 25-year span, rising from 257,000 to 310,000, a gain of nearly 53,000. Gas’ declining share does not reflect fewer Montana homes using gas for heat. Rather, electricity accounted for a larger portion of the state’s growing number of occupied homes.
The trend has been underway for years. Electric heating accounted for an estimated 19.8% of occupied homes in 2010, 23.7% in 2015 and 26.2% in 2019. The Census Bureau did not release 2020 annual estimates because of pandemic-related disruptions to data collection.
Electric heating has also gained ground in newly constructed Montana houses, though gas remains dominant in new construction as well. A 2025 study by the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance found that 13.5% of heating systems in a sample study of new single-family homes were electric, compared with 2% in a 2012 study. Most of the electric systems identified in the newer study were heat pumps. Riley Duecker, an HVACR instructor at Gallatin College, wrote in a 2024 Montana State University Extension article that rebates and tax incentives, along with improvements in heat pump technology for cold climates, make heat pump systems much more appealing than in the past.
Other heating fuels remain relatively uncommon. Fuel oil and kerosene heating fell from 3.1% of occupied homes in 2000 to 0.7% in 2025, with the estimated number of homes using those fuels declining from 11,000 to 3,100. Wood’s share declined more modestly, from 7.5% to 6.2%, even as the estimated number of primarily wood-heated homes edged up from about 27,000 to 30,000. Another 1.1% relied on other heating sources including coal, solar, purchased steam and fuel briquettes. The survey also estimates that about 3,500 occupied Montana residences, or .7%, used no heating fuel in 2025, a category that includes homes without any installed heating equipment.
All of the figures are estimates rather than exact counts. The 2000 figures come from the census’ sample-based long-form survey, while the later figures come from the American Community Survey. While the two surveys have different methodologies and margins of error, the Census Bureau considers them comparable, and both show a substantial long-term trend toward electricity as an increasingly common source of home heating.
