Three of the four schemes people search for are live, and one has closed. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme pays £7,500 towards a heat pump in England and Wales, £9,000 where you are off the gas grid and replacing oil or LPG, and £2,500 towards an air-to-air unit since 21 July 2026. ECO4 runs until 31 December 2026 for households on qualifying benefits. Installing energy-saving materials carries 0% VAT until 31 March 2027. The Great British Insulation Scheme ended on 31 March 2026.
Boiler Upgrade Scheme
OpenNew grant values took effect on 21 July 2026£7,500 for an air source or ground source heat pump, £9,000 off the gas grid when you replace oil or LPG, £5,000 for a biomass boiler, £2,500 for an air-to-air heat pump
Property owners replacing a fossil fuel heating system, with no income or benefit test. England and Wales.
Source: GOV.UK, Apply for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme: what you can get, checked 13 August 2026.
ECO4 (Energy Company Obligation)
EndingOpen until 31 December 2026, after a nine month extensionInsulation and heating work paid for by your energy supplier, with no fixed grant figure per household
Households on qualifying benefits in a home with a low energy efficiency rating. Great Britain, delivered through obligated energy suppliers.
Source: Ofgem, Energy Company Obligation (ECO), checked 13 August 2026.
Great British Insulation Scheme
ClosedInstallations had to be complete by 31 March 2026Free or cheaper insulation, usually a single measure such as cavity wall or loft insulation
Closed to new applicants: the service to check whether you were eligible has closed. England, Scotland and Wales.
Source: GOV.UK, Great British Insulation Scheme, checked 13 August 2026.
0% VAT on energy-saving materials
EndingZero rate until 31 March 2027, then 5% from 1 April 2027A tax relief rather than a grant: nothing to apply for, the installer bills you at 0%
Anyone having qualifying materials installed in residential accommodation or a charitable building. Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Source: GOV.UK, Energy-saving materials and heating equipment (VAT Notice 708/6), checked 13 August 2026.
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is no longer a single number. New grant categories and values took effect on 21 July 2026, and most guidance written before that date still quotes the old picture.
Source: GOV.UK, Notice of approved grant categories and values for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, effective from 21 July 2026, checked 13 August 2026.
| Technology | On the gas grid | Off gas grid, replacing oil or LPG |
|---|---|---|
| Air source heat pump (air-to-water)Off the gas grid, the higher figure applies to oil and LPG only. Replacing coal, a fossil fuel hybrid, electric heating that is not a heat pump, or another fossil fuel stays at £7,500. | £7,500 | £9,000 |
| Ground source heat pump, including water source and shared ground loopsSame split as the air source rate: the extra £1,500 is tied to oil and LPG off the gas grid. | £7,500 | £9,000 |
| Air-to-air heat pumpNew category since 21 July 2026. This is the type that heats and cools, and the rate is the same on or off the gas grid. | £2,500 | £2,500 |
| Biomass boilerOff the gas grid only, and the property has to be in a rural location with an emissions certificate for the boiler. | Not available | £5,000 |
Source: GOV.UK, Apply for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme: what you can get and the approved grant values notice, both checked 13 August 2026. The extra £1,500 for off gas grid properties on oil or LPG runs until March 2027.
The grant lands on the quote, not on your bank account, so the number that matters is what the installer charges after it. The heat pump versus new boiler comparison sets the after-grant figure against the cost of another gas boiler, and new boiler cost covers the replacement route on its own.
What rules a property out:
The eligibility guidance sets no EPC rating condition and does not ask you to clear outstanding loft or cavity insulation recommendations first. Guides that add those conditions are not describing what gov.uk asks for on the date below. Your installer will still size the system for your house, which is a technical question rather than a grant condition.
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is open to people in England and Wales. Scotland runs its own support, where an interest free loan or a grant may be available, and the Boiler Replacement Scheme in Northern Ireland has closed.
The Warm Homes Plan of 18 March 2026 allocates £2.687 billion to the scheme through 2029/30, which it expects could help around 400,000 more households and small businesses move to clean heat.
Sources: GOV.UK, Apply for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme: check if you are eligible, GOV.UK, Apply for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (overview, scheme coverage) and GOV.UK, Warm Homes Plan, 18 March 2026, checked 13 August 2026.
Heat batteries were announced alongside the air-to-air grant on 18 November 2025, also at £2,500. They are not in the approved grant categories that took effect on 21 July 2026, and the consumer guidance does not list them. The announcement said grants would start once appropriate product, design and installation standards come into force, so treat a quote that already promises this money with caution.
ECO4 applies to measures installed from 1 April 2022 and now runs until 31 December 2026, after a nine month extension confirmed in the government response of 23 January 2026. The stated reasons were giving obligated suppliers time to meet their targets, closing the scheme in an orderly way, and letting the supply chain remediate non-compliant installations.
You may qualify if you receive one of these:
The rating your home needs depends on how you live in it:
You own and live in the home
Energy efficiency rating of D, E, F or G
You rent privately
Rating of E, F or G, and your landlord has to agree to the work
You are a social housing tenant
Rating of E, F or G
What the work usually covers:
ECO4 is an obligation on energy suppliers rather than a fund you apply to, so there is no national application form. Gov.uk points you two ways: contact your local council to find out whether it is taking part, or contact an energy supplier directly, with the list of participating suppliers held by Ofgem. Ofgem describes the target as low-income, fuel-poor and vulnerable households. If an installer or agent approaches you out of the blue, the same guidance says to check the offer with your council or with the supplier they claim to represent before agreeing to anything.
Sources: GOV.UK, Energy Company Obligation and Ofgem, Energy Company Obligation (ECO), checked 13 August 2026.
There is no ECO5. The Warm Homes Plan moves low-income support from bill-funded supplier obligations to government funded grants: over £5 billion by 2030, delivered for now through the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund and the Warm Homes: Local Grant, which the plan intends to merge into a single low-income capital scheme from 2027/28. Amounts per household under those routes are set locally, so this page does not quote a figure for them.
The Great British Insulation Scheme has ended. Installations had to be complete by 31 March 2026 and the service to check whether you qualified for free or cheaper insulation has closed. The ECO4 extension deliberately did not cover it: the January 2026 government response said GBIS would end as planned, to reduce complexity and keep the focus on ECO4.
How it worked, for anyone who arrived from an older article:
If you arrived here from an article that still presents this scheme as open, the two routes that remain for insulation are ECO4 while it lasts, and paying for the work yourself at 0% VAT.
Sources: GOV.UK, Great British Insulation Scheme and GOV.UK statistics, Summary of the Great British Insulation Scheme: June 2026, checked 13 August 2026, plus GOV.UK news, Families to save hundreds through £1 billion insulation scheme, 14 September 2023 for the council tax bands.
A zero rate applies to the installation of certain specified energy-saving materials from 1 May 2023 to 31 March 2027. From 1 April 2027 onwards these revert to the reduced rate of VAT of 5%. There is nothing to apply for: a qualifying installation is simply invoiced without VAT.
The list of qualifying materials:
Water source heat pumps, electricity storage batteries and smart diverters were added to the list on 1 February 2024.
The relief covers residential accommodation and charitable buildings in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The groundworks needed to install a ground or water source heat pump are zero rated over the same period, which matters on the jobs where digging is the larger half of the bill.
This is the quietest of the four measures and the easiest to lose. It is a rate on the invoice rather than a scheme with a form, so nobody writes to tell you it is ending. Price the job first in the cost calculator, then work out what 5% on that figure would be from 1 April 2027. If the answer changes your decision, the completion date matters more than the order date, and how to pay for a renovation covers the funding side of bringing work forward.
Source: GOV.UK, Energy-saving materials and heating equipment (VAT Notice 708/6), checked 13 August 2026.
Grant pages age badly, so here is the honest version: what moved recently, and the dates that will make this page wrong if it is not updated.
21 July 2026
New Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant categories and values took effect: air-to-air heat pumps at £2,500, and £9,000 for air source and ground source heat pumps off the gas grid replacing oil or LPG.
31 March 2026
The Great British Insulation Scheme ended. Installations had to be complete by this date and the eligibility service closed.
23 January 2026
ECO4 was extended by nine months to 31 December 2026. The same response confirmed that the extension did not apply to the Great British Insulation Scheme.
GOV.UK, Extending the ECO4 end date: government response, 23 January 2026
18 November 2025
Air-to-air heat pumps and heat batteries were announced at £2,500 each. Only the air-to-air grant has since appeared in the approved categories.
GOV.UK news, Discounts for families to keep warm in winter and cool in summer, 18 November 2025
Dates already in the diary:
I checked every figure on this page against the source next to it on 13 August 2026. Where a scheme has closed I say so rather than leaving it on the list, because a closed scheme sends people down a route that costs them an evening and gets them nowhere. If gov.uk says something different from this page, gov.uk is the one that counts for your application.
Both figures are current, and which one applies depends on the house. £7,500 is the standard grant for an air source or ground source heat pump. £9,000 applies where the property has no mains gas connection and the system being replaced runs on oil or LPG. That higher rate took effect on 21 July 2026 and runs until March 2027. An air-to-air heat pump, the type that also cools, is a separate category at £2,500.
No. An MCS certified installer applies on your behalf and takes the grant off your quote, so you pay the balance. The installer has to commission and install the heat pump within 120 days of applying, otherwise the grant falls away, which is why the application usually waits until the job is genuinely booked in.
No. The scheme is open to people in England and Wales. Scotland runs its own support, where an interest free loan or a grant may be available, and the Boiler Replacement Scheme in Northern Ireland has closed. The 0% VAT rate on energy-saving materials is the one measure on this page that covers the whole of the UK.
It has ended. Installations had to be complete by 31 March 2026 and the eligibility service has closed. The nine month ECO4 extension deliberately did not cover it. Plenty of articles still describe it as open, which is worth knowing before you spend an evening on an application route that no longer exists.
The zero rate on installing qualifying energy-saving materials runs to 31 March 2027. From 1 April 2027 the reduced rate of 5% applies instead. On a £10,000 installation that is a £500 difference, so where a job is already planned for early 2027 it is worth asking your installer what the completion date does to the invoice.