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One of the main tools to achieve the promise of carbon neutrality is the energy transition. Reducing dependence on traditional energy and promoting the use of renewable energy drives changes in the energy sector and contributes to the energy transition. The building sector is strongly linked to energy consumption and retrofitting the building sector with natural gas energy is a positive energy efficiency strategy. This research aimed to determine the factors influencing social housing tenants in the Netherlands to participate in retrofits and to identify the differences among participants in their preferences. Using a stated choice experiment and discrete choice model, 380 effective social housing tenants in the Netherlands participated. The estimated Mixed Logit Model (MLM) reveals the preferences of social housing residents, and the Latent Class Model (LCM) indicates differences between latent groups. The results show that social housing residents are attracted by saving total housing costs, enhancing living comfort, providing a new bathroom, kitchen and toilet of individual houses and improving the neighbourhood environment. Meanwhile, they are resistant to the interference generated during the renovation process. These findings can be used to guide government and housing organisations in developing retrofit programs that align with the needs and preferences of social housing tenants. • Increasing social housing retrofit contributes to the energy transition. • Determine attributes in promoting tenants' interest in energy-efficiency renovations. • Captured the preference heterogeneity by a mixed logit model. • Observe heterogeneous preferences among latent class membership respondents. • Gain and hedonic motives exert key roles in attracting tenants' willingness to participate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]