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Heat pumpsThe Boiler Upgrade Scheme, explained
The grant is a fixed amount, you never fill in the form yourself, and the largest version of it has a published deadline. Here is the current position, checked against GOV.UK and Ofgem in August 2026.
Updated 4 August 2026 · written by the Clearline guidance team
What the scheme pays
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme pays £7,500 towards an air source or ground source heat pump in England and Wales. If your property is heated by oil or LPG and has no mains gas connection, an extra £1,500 takes that to £9,000. Biomass boilers get £5,000 and air-to-air heat pumps get £2,500. The amounts are fixed. They do not scale with the size or cost of the job.
| Technology | Grant amount | Condition |
|---|---|---|
| Air source heat pump | £7,500 | Standard amount |
| Ground source heat pump | £7,500 | Standard amount |
| Air source or ground source, off the gas grid | £9,000 | Property heated by oil or LPG with no mains gas connection |
| Biomass boiler | £5,000 | Standard amount |
| Air-to-air heat pump | £2,500 | Standard amount |
Amounts from the GOV.UK Boiler Upgrade Scheme pages, checked August 2026. England and Wales only. Individual systems are capped at 45kWth.
The £9,000 version has a real deadline
Ofgem publishes the off gas grid uplift as running from 21 July 2026 to 31 March 2027. That is the window in which an oil or LPG heated home with no mains gas connection can claim the extra £1,500 on top of the £7,500. After it closes, the published position is the standard amount.
Who qualifies
Eligibility is about ownership and about what you are replacing, not about how well insulated the house already is. The conditions published on GOV.UK in August 2026 are these.
- You own the property. Second homes and properties you rent out are both included.
- You are replacing an existing fossil fuel heating system: oil, gas, LPG or electric.
- The property is in England or Wales. Scotland runs its own support through Home Energy Scotland instead.
- The installation is carried out by an MCS-certified installation team for your area, because only an MCS-certified team can apply for and redeem the voucher.
- Self builds are eligible. Most new builds are not.
- One grant per property, and none at all if that property has already had government funding for a heat pump or biomass boiler.
No EPC condition and no income cap
The GOV.UK eligibility page carries no EPC requirement and no insulation condition, and there is no income test. Loft and cavity insulation recommendations that used to gate the grant are not on the current eligibility page. That does not make insulation irrelevant to your running costs, but it is not a barrier to the money.
What the scheme does not cover
- Hybrid systems. A heat pump paired with a gas boiler is excluded outright.
- Social housing, and most new build properties.
- Individual systems above 45kWth.
- A second grant on a property that has already claimed one.
- Tenants. The owner of the property is the one the grant attaches to, so a renter cannot claim it on a home they do not own.
- Anything in Scotland, which sits outside the scheme entirely.
Not sure which of those lines your property falls on? A free guidance call will walk your specific situation through the current rules before anyone quotes you.
Get your free quote →How the grant is actually claimed
You do not apply. Ofgem is explicit that MCS certified installers apply for and redeem vouchers on behalf of property owners, which means the grant reaches you as a deduction on the quoted price rather than as money paid into your account. Installations are carried out by an MCS-certified installation team for your area, and the voucher paperwork is their job from start to finish.
Confirm the basics
You own the property, it is in England or Wales, and you are replacing a fossil fuel system. Those three answers decide most cases before anything else happens.
Get quotes from MCS certified installation teams
Certification is not a badge of quality alone. It is the mechanism the grant money flows through, so a quote from a non certified firm cannot carry the £7,500.
Have the heat loss survey done
A certified heat pump installation is designed from a room by room heat loss survey rather than a rule of thumb. That survey sets the heat pump size, the design flow temperature and which emitters change, so it has to happen before anyone can price the job honestly.
The installation team applies for the voucher
This happens on your behalf, with your consent, before the work is booked in. Vouchers carry an expiry, so let the installation team manage the timing against the install date.
Work completes and the voucher is redeemed
The installation team redeems it after commissioning and registering the installation. The grant value has already come off what you were quoted.
MCS certification does two jobs here at once. It is the route the grant money travels down, and it is what holds the installation team to a design standard rather than a guess. An installation team that will not produce a room by room heat loss calculation for your property is one to walk away from.
What you pay once the grant is off
Comparison guides published in 2026 using Energy Saving Trust data put typical installed costs before the grant at roughly £9,000 for a small home, £11,000 for a three bed and £13,000 for a large detached. Take the standard £7,500 off those and the homeowner contribution lands near £1,500, £3,500 and £5,500 respectively. An oil heated home off the gas grid claiming £9,000 pushes the small home figure to zero and the three bed to around £2,000. Those are indicative ranges from secondary sources, not a quote, and the real number comes out of the heat loss survey for your property.
Where the local picture matters
Grant rules are national but the sums are not. Fuel you are coming off, property age and the emitter work the survey calls for all move the final figure, and the off gas grid uplift only applies in some postcodes. Every county page on this site carries a local calculator and the current grant position, so check your county for the local picture. The full heat pumps guide covers sizing, flow temperature and running cost, and tariffs is where the running cost argument is actually won or lost once the system is in.
Book a free guidance call and we will confirm which grant amount your property qualifies for, then put you in front of an MCS-certified installation team for your area who can claim it.
Get your free quote →Grant amounts, eligibility conditions and the off gas grid window were checked against GOV.UK and Ofgem on 3 August 2026. Scheme rules and budgets change. Confirm the current position before you sign anything.
Boiler Upgrade Scheme questions, answered
Do I need a certain EPC rating to get the grant?
No. The GOV.UK eligibility page for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme sets no EPC requirement and no insulation condition as of August 2026, and there is no income cap either. Insulation still affects what the heat loss survey calculates and what the system costs to run, but it does not gate access to the money.
Can I apply for the grant myself?
No. Ofgem's scheme rules put the application and redemption in the hands of MCS certified installers, who do it on the property owner's behalf. In practice the grant appears as a deduction on your quote rather than a payment to you, so compare quotes on the figure after the grant has come off.
Can a landlord or a second home owner claim it?
Yes. The condition is ownership, not occupancy. Properties you rent out and second homes are both eligible under the published rules. Tenants cannot claim on a property they do not own, so it has to come from the owner.
Does the grant cover new radiators or a hot water cylinder?
The grant is a fixed amount towards the installation, not a percentage of the quote. Whatever the room by room design calls for, including emitter changes and a cylinder, is priced into the installation team's quote, and the same fixed £7,500 or £9,000 is deducted from that total. A bigger job does not attract a bigger grant.
Are hybrid heat pump systems eligible?
No. A heat pump paired with a gas boiler is excluded from the scheme. That exclusion sits alongside trial evidence showing hybrid installations performed worse than standalone heat pumps, with a median heat pump efficiency of 2.37 against 2.80 for air source systems overall in the government funded Electrification of Heat project.
Is the Boiler Upgrade Scheme ending?
Ofgem publishes the £9,000 off gas grid window as closing on 31 March 2027, so that is a dated deadline you can plan around. The standard £7,500 amount is live at the time of writing. Scheme budgets and rules are reviewed, which is why this page carries the date it was checked.
See the numbers next: Duracell Dura16, installed, or what a battery costs.
Figures and specifications in this guide are sourced below and were checked on the date shown. Rates and product specifications change; we confirm the current picture on your free design call.
Sources
- GOV.UK, Boiler Upgrade Scheme: what you can get (grant amounts, off gas grid uplift, 45kWth cap), accessed August 2026 gov.uk
- GOV.UK, Boiler Upgrade Scheme: check if you are eligible (ownership, fossil fuel replacement, exclusions, no EPC condition), accessed August 2026 gov.uk
- Ofgem, Boiler Upgrade Scheme (installer applies and redeems vouchers; £9,000 window 21 July 2026 to 31 March 2027), accessed August 2026 ofgem.gov.uk
- Complete Picture, published summary of the MCS heat pump design requirements, used for the room by room heat loss survey point (secondary source, not an MCS document) completepicture.co.uk
- Reonic, heat loss survey guide: what a room by room survey produces and how it sets the design (secondary source) reonic.com
- Energy Systems Catapult, Electrification of Heat performance data (hybrid and air source seasonal performance) es.catapult.org.uk
- Energy Saving Trust derived installed cost ranges as cited in 2026 comparison guides ukhomeenergy.co.uk
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