Energy data

Warm Home Discount 2026 — Who Qualifies and How to Get It

Contents

The Warm Home Discount takes a fixed amount off the electricity bill of households on a low income. It is not paid to you in cash, you mostly do not apply for it, and whether you get it is decided by a government data match rather than by anything you fill in.

Everything factual on this page is read from an entry that is checked against the scheme’s own GOV.UK page every day, and the date of that check is shown below. Nothing here is a second copy of the rules kept by hand.

What the Warm Home Discount is

Can you get it right now?

Closed at the moment. GOV.UK says it will reopen in October 2026 for winter 2026 to 2027. Nothing needs doing in the meantime: most eligible households are found automatically from benefit records.

What you get: £150A fixed £150 for winter 2026 to 2027, set by government for each scheme year rather than fixed for ever. It is credited against your electricity bill and is not paid to you as cash. If one supplier provides both your gas and your electricity you may be able to have it against the gas bill instead; your supplier decides that.
Where it applies: England, Scotland and Wales
Who qualifies, as published: A one-off discount on an electricity bill for households on a low income, applied by the supplier rather than paid to the household. For winter 2026 to 2027 the qualifying date is 23 August 2026, and on that date your supplier must be part of the scheme, you or your partner must receive certain means-tested benefits, and your name or your partner's must be on the electricity bill. In England and Wales the qualifying means-tested benefits are Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, income-related Employment and Support Allowance and Pension Credit, and everyone who qualifies is in the automatic "core group". Scotland works differently and has two groups: a core group paid automatically, and a "broader group" who must apply to their own supplier, which may set extra criteria and decides which benefits count.
How you get it: Usually automatic, with a letter confirming it. In England and Wales there is nothing to apply for. In Scotland some households are paid automatically and others must apply directly to their electricity supplier. Your supplier must be part of the scheme for any of this to apply. If you were confirmed eligible for winter 2025 to 2026 and had not received the discount by 31 March 2026, contact your electricity supplier.
Who runs it: Participating energy suppliers, under Ofgem administration

Whether you qualify is not decided here

This page states the published criteria and nothing more. The decision is made by your electricity supplier and by the government data match behind the scheme, using facts this site cannot see — which benefits your household receives, whose name is on the bill, and in England and Wales property characteristics you are never shown. Anyone telling you the answer without those is guessing.

Check your eligibility on GOV.UK

This summary was checked against GOV.UK on 7 August 2026.

Warm Home Discount compared with the schemes it is most often confused with
Scheme	Where it applies	Who runs it
Warm Home Discountthis page	England, Scotland and Wales	Participating energy suppliers, under Ofgem administration
Winter Fuel Payment	England, Wales and Northern Ireland	Department for Work and Pensions
Pension Age Winter Heating Payment	Scotland	Social Security Scotland

Which suppliers run it

Not every supplier takes part, and the list changes from one scheme year to the next. It is read from GOV.UK rather than kept by hand here, so it says what the official page says.

Being on this list is one of two conditions

Your electricity supplier has to be taking part andyour household has to be on a qualifying benefit. Finding your supplier below does not mean you get the discount, and it is the second condition — decided by a government data match against benefit records — that this site cannot see for you.

Check the other condition on GOV.UK

GOV.UK lists 24 suppliers for the winter 2026 to 2027 scheme. Names are shown exactly as GOV.UK writes them, because some are brands of others and the pointer is the useful part.

100Green (formerly Green Energy UK or GEUK)
Boost
British Gas
E - also known as E (Gas and Electricity)
Ecotricity
EDF
EnergyCoop – see Octopus Energy
E.ON Next
Fuse Energy
Good Energy
Home Energy
London Power
Octopus Energy
Outfox Energy
OVO
Sainsbury’s Energy
Scottish Gas – see British Gas
ScottishPower
So Energy
Square 1 Energy Ltd
TruEnergy
Tulo Energy
Utilita
Utility Warehouse

Read from GOV.UK on 7 August 2026. If your supplier stopped trading, Ofgem appoints a new one and you may still be eligible — check with whoever supplies you now. See the official list

England and Wales, and why Scotland is different

The scheme runs across Great Britain, but not in the same way throughout it, and the difference is structural rather than a detail.

England and Wales have a single automatic group. If the data match says you qualify, your supplier applies the discount and writes to you; there is nothing to fill in and no queue to join.

Scotland has two groups. One is automatic, on the same principle. The other — the scheme calls it the broader group — has to apply directly to their own electricity supplier, and that supplier sets extra criteria of its own and decides which benefits count. So two Scottish households on the same benefit can have different answers depending on who supplies their electricity, and a Scottish reader waiting for a letter that was never going to arrive is the characteristic way this scheme is missed.

It is not the Winter Fuel Payment

These are two different schemes and readers merge them constantly. Both help with heating in winter, both are largely automatic, and the names are close enough to blur. They differ in every way that matters.

The Warm Home Discount is a credit on an electricity account, applied by an energy supplier, for households on a low income across Great Britain. The Winter Fuel Payment is cash from the Department for Work and Pensions, for people over a certain age, covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland — and not Scotland, which runs the Pension Age Winter Heating Payment through Social Security Scotland instead.

So no two of the three cover the same places, and none of them covers the United Kingdom. The table above sets the scopes side by side; the full scheme register carries all three in detail.

If you think you should have had it

Because it arrives as a credit rather than a payment, it is easy to miss, and easy to assume you were turned down when the discount is simply sitting further down the bill. Check the account first.

If it genuinely has not arrived and you were confirmed eligible, the route is your electricity supplier rather than the government: they apply the discount, so they are the ones who can say what happened to it. The official page linked above carries the deadline and the escalation route if the supplier cannot help.

Frequently asked questions

Do I qualify for the Warm Home Discount?

This page cannot tell you, and neither can any other page that does not know your benefits, your supplier and your property. The decision is made by a government data match against benefit records and, in England and Wales, against property characteristics you are never shown — then applied by your electricity supplier. What this page can do is state the published criteria and send you to the official check, which is the only place the answer is real.

Is the Warm Home Discount paid to me in cash?

No. It is a credit applied to your electricity account by your supplier, not money paid into your bank. That is the single most common misunderstanding about it, and it is why it is worth knowing the difference from the Winter Fuel Payment, which is a cash payment from the DWP. If one supplier provides both your gas and your electricity, you may be able to have the credit against the gas bill instead — your supplier decides that.

Do I have to apply?

In England and Wales, no — everyone who qualifies is in what the scheme calls the "core group" and is identified automatically, with a letter confirming it. Scotland is genuinely different: it has a core group who are paid automatically and a "broader group" who must apply directly to their electricity supplier, which sets extra criteria of its own and decides which benefits count. If you are in Scotland and expecting it automatically, that assumption is worth checking.

Can I get it in Northern Ireland?

No. The Warm Home Discount covers Great Britain — England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland has no equivalent scheme of this name, which is why this page never describes the scheme as UK-wide. Northern Ireland households are covered by the Winter Fuel Payment, which is a different scheme with a different scope again.

Why does this page not just tell me the current rules?

It does — but from one place rather than two. Everything factual here is read from a register entry that is checked against the scheme’s own GOV.UK page every day, and the date of the last check is shown on the page. Writing the rules into the page itself would mean two copies, and the older one would go on reading as current after the scheme changed. That is not a theoretical risk: it is exactly what had happened to this scheme’s entry before this page was built.