A 2020 federal law is steadily shrinking the legal supply of R-410A and other HFC refrigerants. Here's the actual phasedown schedule, and what it means for repair costs on an older system.
The American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act, passed in 2020, gave the EPA authority to phase down the total amount of HFC refrigerant — the family that includes R-410A, R-32, and R-454B — allowed to be produced or imported into the US each year. It works like a shrinking cap: EPA issues a fixed pool of "allowances" against a 2011–2013 baseline, and that pool gets smaller at scheduled steps.
| Period | Allowed vs. baseline |
|---|---|
| 2020–2023 | 90% |
| 2024–2028 (current step) | 60% |
| 2029–2033 | 30% |
| 2034–2035 | 20% |
| 2036 and after | 15% |
It isn't a smooth year-by-year decline — it's a step function, and the next step is a big one: in 2029, the legal supply pool roughly halves again, from 60% of baseline down to 30%. The direction, though, is consistently one way: down.
The installed base of R-410A equipment isn't shrinking — most of it was installed over the last 10–15 years and will keep needing that same refrigerant for repairs for years to come. A shrinking legal supply meeting a large, steady repair demand is a straightforward recipe for rising prices, and it's already playing out: a 2026 rule adjustment that raised allowable GWP limits for certain commercial refrigeration equipment pulled more of the shrinking HFC pool toward that sector, and the industry group HARDI estimated this adds roughly $13 billion in added costs across the refrigeration industry alone — pressure that flows through the same shared allowance pool everyone else, including residential HVAC, is drawing from.
R-22 is the preview of where this heads if left unmanaged: production and import were banned outright in 2020, and by 2025 the only remaining supply — recovered, recycled, and reclaimed material — was running $90–$250 per pound, with a full recharge on a mid-size system costing over a thousand dollars. R-410A isn't banned the way R-22 was, but it's on a managed decline toward a much smaller allowance, which is a slower version of the same basic dynamic.
EPA also lifted its January 1, 2026 deadline that would have banned installing existing (pre-manufactured) R-410A equipment, citing a stranded-inventory problem in the supply chain. That's a separate, administrative fix — it doesn't change the underlying AIM Act allowance schedule above, which keeps shrinking regardless.
HVAC Referee checks your actual quote against equipment, installation, and pricing standards — including which refrigerant and efficiency tier you're being quoted.