What Energy Vouchers And Grants Are Available

What energy vouchers and grants are available right now depends on the time of year, where you live and your income. As of June 2026, several major schemes sit between their yearly cycles, so this guide explains what is open, what reopens later in 2026, and how to get help with both your bills and the cost of making your home warmer.

Most support falls into three groups: bill rebates and credits (like the Warm Home Discount), one-off vouchers and crisis help through your council, and grants towards insulation, boilers and heat pumps.

• Warm Home Discount – a £150 electricity rebate; the 2025/26 scheme has closed and is expected to reopen in October 2026.
• Winter Fuel Payment – £200 (£300 if 80+) for pensioners with income up to £35,000, paid each winter.
• Cold Weather Payment – £25 per qualifying cold spell for people on certain benefits.
• Fuel vouchers and crisis help – available through your local council, now via the new Crisis and Resilience Fund.
• Boiler Upgrade Scheme – up to £7,500 towards a heat pump, still open in 2026.

Help with your energy bills versus help with your home

Energy support in the UK splits into two types: schemes that cut what you pay on your bills, and grants that pay for energy-saving improvements to your home. Knowing which you need points you to the right scheme.

Bill-support schemes such as the Warm Home Discount, Winter Fuel Payment and Cold Weather Payment put money towards your gas and electricity costs directly. Home-improvement grants like the Boiler Upgrade Scheme and insulation funding instead reduce your bills permanently by making your property cheaper to heat.

Some support is automatic if you receive certain benefits. Other schemes are application-based and run through your energy supplier or your local council. A few, like fuel vouchers, are short-term crisis help for households about to run out of credit.

The Warm Home Discount: a £150 electricity rebate

The Warm Home Discount is a one-off £150 discount off your electricity bill, applied each winter by your energy supplier if you qualify. The 2025/26 scheme year has closed and, according to GOV.UK, is expected to reopen in October 2026.

For most households the £150 is added to your electricity account as a credit. If you use a prepayment or pay-as-you-go meter, your supplier usually sends a voucher you can redeem at a Post Office to top up, or credits a smart prepayment meter directly.

Eligibility was widened from October 2025. Following a June 2025 government announcement and the Warm Home Discount (Amendment) Regulations 2025, the “high-cost-to-heat” property test in England and Wales was removed. This means all households on a qualifying means-tested benefit can now get the rebate. The House of Commons Library estimates around 6 million households in Great Britain were supported in winter 2025/26, around 2.7 million more than the year before.

You qualify under Core Group 1 if you or your partner receive the Guarantee Credit element of Pension Credit on the qualifying date. Under Core Group 2 you qualify if you receive one of the listed means-tested benefits. In England and Wales most rebates are paid automatically through data matching, so you do not need to apply.

Warm Home Discount in Scotland and park homes

In Scotland the Warm Home Discount works slightly differently and is partly application-based. The Core Group is automatic, but the Broader Group requires you to apply directly to your supplier under criteria approved by Ofgem, with a £150 rebate to your electricity account (or gas account on request).

If you live permanently on a residential park home site and pay the site owner for your electricity, you may be able to claim through the Park Home Warm Home Discount. Citizens Advice states you generally qualify if your household income is below £20,328 a year before deductions, or if someone in the home receives one of the listed benefits.

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Winter Fuel Payment: £200 to £300 for pensioners

The Winter Fuel Payment is an annual payment worth £200, rising to £300 if someone in the household is aged 80 or over, paid to people of State Pension age. For winter 2025/26 it was restored to all eligible pensioners, then clawed back from anyone with income above £35,000.

The £35,000 limit is a cliff-edge threshold that applies per individual. The House of Commons Library and GOV.UK confirm that someone with income of exactly £35,000 keeps the full payment, while someone on £35,001 has the whole amount recovered. Your partner’s income is not added to yours for this test.

Where money is to be recovered, HMRC usually does this automatically through PAYE in 2026/27 by adjusting your tax code, collecting around £17 a month based on a typical £200 payment. You no longer need to be on benefits to receive the Winter Fuel Payment.

Higher-income pensioners can opt out of the 2026/27 payment from 1 April 2026, with the DWP publishing an online form on GOV.UK. The qualifying week for 2026/27 is 21 to 27 September 2026. In Scotland the equivalent is the Pension Age Winter Heating Payment, which uses the same eligibility rules.

Cold Weather Payment: £25 per cold spell

Cold Weather Payments of £25 are issued automatically for each seven-day period when your area’s temperature remains at or below 0°C between 1 November and 31 March. You do not need to apply for this payment, as it is paid to eligible recipients without requiring an application.

The payment is targeted at people receiving Pension Credit, Universal Credit, Income Support or income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, usually with a child, disability or pensioner element in their claim. If you qualify, the money is paid into the same account as your benefit within around 14 working days of a cold spell.

Fuel vouchers and council crisis help in 2026

A fuel voucher is short-term emergency help that lets you add credit to a prepayment gas or electricity meter when you are about to run out. You generally cannot get one directly; your local council or a referral organisation such as Citizens Advice arranges it.

Fuel vouchers are redeemed at a Post Office or at a shop signed up to Payzone, and the amount varies by referral and household need. They often expire quickly, so you may need to use one within around 15 days of receiving it.

The Household Support Fund, which previously funded much of this council-level help in England, closed on 31 March 2026. It has been replaced from April 2026 by the Crisis and Resilience Fund, a multi-year scheme running to March 2029 that offers help with food, energy bills, housing and other essentials. As with the old fund, you do not always need to be on benefits, and each council sets its own rules, so check your local authority’s website for what is on offer in your area.

Cut your bills as well as claiming support

Comparing energy tariffs can help you save money on top of any grant or voucher you qualify for. Shopping around suppliers and reviewing your current deal allows you to reduce your bills whilst maximising the financial support available to you.

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What happened to the £400 energy grant?

The £400 energy grant, formally the Energy Bills Support Scheme, was a one-off government discount paid to all domestic electricity customers during winter 2022/23 and has not been repeated. There is no universal £400 payment available in 2026.

Support is now targeted at lower-income and pensioner households through the schemes above, rather than paid to everyone. If you are struggling with bills, the most likely current help is the Warm Home Discount, your council’s Crisis and Resilience Fund, or a debt and energy grant via a charitable trust linked to your supplier.

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme: £7,500 towards a heat pump

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) is a government grant that gives homeowners in England and Wales £7,500 off the cost and installation of an air source, ground source or water source heat pump, or £5,000 off a biomass boiler. It is administered by Ofgem on behalf of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and runs to 2028 as part of the Warm Homes Plan.

Unlike ECO4, the Boiler Upgrade Scheme is not means-tested — it is open to all homeowners regardless of income. You do not apply directly. Instead, an MCS-certified installer applies for and redeems the voucher on your behalf, taking the grant value off your quote upfront.

A separate £2,500 grant is available towards an air-to-air heat pump for residential properties. As of April 2026, you no longer need insulation recommendations on your Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) before claiming, which widened access to the scheme.

The £9,000 grant for oil and LPG homes

From 21 July 2026 to 31 March 2027, eligible off-gas-grid homes that rely on heating oil or LPG can claim £9,000 towards an air source or ground source heat pump under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme. The government announced this temporary uplift on 21 April 2026.

The £9,000 rate is not available to homes with mains gas central heating — it applies only to off-gas-grid properties using oil or LPG. Anyone with an existing live BUS voucher will still only get £7,500; only vouchers applied for on or after 21 July 2026 qualify for the higher amount.

After the grant and 0% VAT on installation, the net cost of a heat pump for a typical three-to-four-bedroom home is often in the region of £2,000 to £6,500, depending on the system, though this is an illustrative range rather than a guaranteed price.

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ECO4: free insulation and heating for low-income homes

ECO4 (the Energy Company Obligation, phase 4) is a £4 billion scheme that funds free insulation and heating measures for low-income and vulnerable households across Great Britain. It was extended and now ends on 31 December 2026, with no further extensions planned and no successor obligation.

ECO4 can cover loft, cavity, solid wall and underfloor insulation, replacement boilers, heat pumps and — for homes with electric heating — solar panels. Energy suppliers fund and deliver the measures to meet their legal obligation, so there is no upfront cost to the household.

Who qualifies for ECO4

ECO4 targets households in EPC bands D to G that receive a qualifying means-tested benefit. Qualifying benefits include Universal Credit, Pension Credit, Child Tax Credit, Working Tax Credit, Income Support, Jobseeker’s Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance and Housing Benefit.

There is also a route called LA Flex, where local councils can refer households on lower incomes (broadly under £31,000 a year) even if they are not on benefits. Solar panels under ECO4 are generally reserved for electrically heated homes, so a household with a gas boiler usually would not qualify for free solar through this route. If you are on a low income, our guide to solar panels for fuel-poor families explains the options in more detail.

Cut your bills while you wait for a grant

Energy tariff comparison tools allow you to compare rates across the whole market in minutes. This approach helps you identify cheaper options without waiting for grant funding to arrive, enabling immediate savings on your energy bills whilst you pursue longer-term financial support.

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The Warm Homes Plan and what replaces ECO4

The Warm Homes Plan is a £15 billion government strategy, published on 21 January 2026, to upgrade UK homes with solar panels, batteries, heat pumps and insulation. It is an umbrella framework rather than a single scheme you apply to, and several of its parts are still being finalised.

The main successor to ECO4 for lower-income households in England is the Warm Homes: Local Grant, delivered through local councils rather than private installers. It funds insulation and low-carbon heating for eligible households, with delivery, measures and exact eligibility varying by local authority.

Grants versus loans under the plan

The Warm Homes Plan splits its funding between direct capital grants for low-income households and repayable finance for everyone else. Around £4.4 billion is earmarked for direct capital grants for low-income and fuel-poor homes to 2030, backed by an initial £600 million from the Warm Homes Fund.

The £5 billion Warm Homes Fund is delivered mainly through repayable finance, not grants. A separate government-backed Consumer Loan Scheme is planned to offer 0% or low-interest loans for solar panels, batteries and heat pumps to homeowners of any income — but it is not yet open, and the government says it will confirm eligibility and timing during 2026.

The plan aims to put solar panels on three million more rooftops and scale up to over 450,000 heat pump installations a year by 2030. If you are weighing up panels in the meantime, our guide to solar panels and battery storage covers how they work and what they cost.

Grants in Scotland and Wales

Scotland and Wales run their own green energy grant schemes, separate from the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, which does not operate in Scotland. If you live in either nation, you apply through the relevant national scheme rather than the England-and-Wales BUS.

Home Energy Scotland grant and loan

In Scotland, the Home Energy Scotland grant and loan offers up to £7,500 in grant funding towards a heat pump or heat network connection, plus an optional interest-free loan of up to a further £7,500. For energy efficiency measures such as insulation, grant funding covers up to 75% of the combined cost, up to a £7,500 maximum.

Rural and island homes in Scotland qualify for an uplift of £1,500 on both the heating and energy efficiency grants, recognising the higher cost of work in remote areas. Lower-income households may also be eligible for support through Warmer Homes Scotland.

The Nest scheme in Wales

In Wales, the Nest scheme provides free home energy improvements to low-income and vulnerable households, including heating, insulation and in some cases solar panels. Homeowners in Wales can also use the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, since BUS covers both England and Wales. Solar installations across the UK benefit from 0% VAT, which applies regardless of which nation you live in.

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Solar panels and the Smart Export Guarantee

There is no standalone government grant solely for solar panels for most UK households in 2026, but several routes can help fund them. Solar can be included under ECO4 for electrically heated low-income homes, may form part of Warm Homes Plan support, and benefits from 0% VAT on installation across the UK.

Once panels are installed, the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) lets you earn money for surplus electricity you export to the grid. Under the SEG, licensed energy suppliers must offer a tariff that pays you per unit (kWh) of exported electricity, though rates vary between suppliers, so it pays to compare. This is an ongoing payment rather than an upfront grant.

If you are choosing a supplier with solar in mind, comparing solar-friendly energy suppliers helps you find a competitive export tariff alongside a fair import rate.

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Why there is no grant to install new gas heating

There is no government grant to install or convert to gas central heating, because UK energy grants now focus on low-carbon, efficient measures rather than fossil-fuel boilers. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme specifically funds heat pumps and biomass, not new gas boilers.

If you are buying a property with electric heating and want to lower running costs, a heat pump grant is the supported option rather than a switch to gas. Improving insulation first also reduces the size and cost of any new heating system, and home insulation is often where the largest grant-funded savings come from.

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Information correct as of 22 June 2026. Prices, tariffs, policy details and providers change frequently, so please check the latest details before making a decision. This article is for general information only and does not constitute financial advice.