£15 billion. That's the headline figure the government attached to the Warm Homes Plan when it was announced as part of Labour's Clean Energy Mission.
But here's where most coverage gets it wrong. The Warm Homes Plan isn't a grant you apply for. It's a policy framework, a set of commitments that ties together several individual funding schemes under one roof. Think of it as the government's master plan for home energy efficiency, not a single pot of money with a single application form. The individual schemes inside it, like the Boiler Upgrade Scheme and ECO4, are where the actual money flows. Each has its own rules, its own eligibility criteria and its own application process.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) runs the overall strategy. Ofgem administers some schemes. Local authorities deliver others. It's a patchwork, and that's partly why it confuses people.
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Because the Warm Homes Plan signals political priority. It means these schemes are less likely to be quietly defunded, more likely to be expanded and, for the first time in a while, connected to each other in a way that's supposed to make the whole thing easier for homeowners to access. Whether that last bit has actually happened yet is debatable. We still see people bouncing between three different websites trying to work out what they qualify for.
The plan also introduced the Warm Homes: Local Grant, which is the newest piece of the puzzle and the one most people haven't heard of yet. More on that below.
Which Open Grants Are Part of the Warm Homes Plan in 2026?
Right, let's get specific. As of April 2026, three schemes are open and actively funding home improvements under the Warm Homes Plan umbrella.
Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS)
This is the big one for heat pump installations. The grant covers:
£7,500 off an air source heat pump
£7,500 off a ground source heat pump
£5,000 off a biomass boiler
£2,500 off an air-to-air heat pump
£2,500 off a heat battery
The BUS runs until March 2028 and is available to homeowners in England and Wales. You don't need to be on a low income. You don't need a specific EPC rating. You just need to be replacing a fossil fuel heating system (or, in some cases, electric heating) with an eligible low-carbon alternative. Your installer applies on your behalf through the MCS portal, so you never actually fill in a BUS application form yourself.
One thing we see people miss: the £7,500 comes off the installation cost before you pay. It's not a rebate you claim back months later. That matters when you're budgeting.
ECO4
Fully funded upgrades for eligible households. No contribution from you at all.
ECO4 is aimed at low-income households living in the least efficient homes, typically EPC bands D to G. If you're on certain means-tested benefits like Universal Credit, Pension Credit or Child Tax Credit and your home has a poor EPC rating, ECO4 can fund insulation, heating replacements and more. The scheme runs until December 2026, and it's delivered by the big energy suppliers (Octopus Energy, British Gas, E.ON and others) who are legally obligated to fund a certain number of upgrades.
Here's the honest bit: ECO4 eligibility is broader than most people think. About a third of UK households are on a qualifying benefit. But the scheme is also capacity-constrained. Suppliers prioritise the worst-performing homes first, so a G-rated house will get attention faster than a D.
Warm Homes: Local Grant
This is the new one. Launched as part of the Warm Homes Plan, it's delivered through local authorities and runs until December 2028.
The grant amount varies by local authority, which is both the strength and the frustration of this scheme. Some councils have been allocated significant funding. Others, less so. The eligibility criteria also vary, though most target low-income owner-occupiers and private tenants in homes with poor energy performance.
What makes this different from ECO4 is the delivery model. Your local council (or a consortium of councils) decides which improvements to prioritise in your area, based on local housing stock data. In some areas that means a heavy focus on cavity wall insulation. In others, it's loft insulation or first-time central heating.
Sheffield City Region has been particularly active with this funding. Parts of rural Wales have targeted off-gas-grid homes. Your experience will depend heavily on where you live, which is frustrating but also means the money is being targeted where local teams think it'll have the most impact.
What about GBIS?
The Great British Insulation Scheme closed in March 2026. It previously offered up to £3,000 towards insulation measures for a wider income group. If you've seen it mentioned online as currently available, that information is out of date. It's done.
How Do You Know If You Qualify for Warm Homes Funding?
This depends entirely on which scheme you're looking at.
For the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, qualification is simple. Own a property in England or Wales. Have a working fossil fuel or electric heating system you want to replace. Use an MCS-certified installer. That's essentially it. No income test. No EPC requirement (though having a recent EPC is recommended and your installer will usually arrange one).
ECO4 is more targeted. You'll typically need to tick two boxes: be receiving a qualifying benefit, and live in a home rated D, E, F or G on its EPC. The qualifying benefits include Universal Credit, Pension Credit, Income Support, income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, Child Tax Credit (with income under the threshold) and several others. There's also a flexible eligibility route where your energy supplier can fund households they identify as fuel-poor even without a qualifying benefit, though this is harder to access and varies by supplier.
The Warm Homes: Local Grant sits somewhere in between. Most local authorities are targeting households with a combined income below a certain threshold (often around £31,000 to £36,000, but it genuinely varies) and homes with an EPC of D or below. Some councils also prioritise specific property types, like park homes or homes without mains gas.
Honestly, the eligibility patchwork is the weakest part of the whole plan. We can't give you a single straight answer because there isn't one. The fastest way to find out is to run your details through our eligibility checker. Two minutes, and it cross-references your postcode, property type, EPC band and benefit status against all open schemes simultaneously.
What Improvements Can You Get Funded Under the Plan?
The range is wider than most people expect.
Insulation is the backbone. Loft insulation (topping up to 270mm of mineral wool), cavity wall insulation, solid wall insulation (internal or external), underfloor insulation and room-in-roof insulation are all covered across various schemes. Loft and cavity wall are the cheapest and most commonly funded. Solid wall insulation is expensive, often £8,000 to £14,000, but it's also where the biggest energy savings are for older solid-wall properties. ECO4 and the Warm Homes: Local Grant both fund it for qualifying homes.
Heating system replacements cover heat pumps (via BUS or ECO4), first-time central heating installations, storage heater upgrades and, in some cases, boiler replacements through ECO4 where the existing system has failed.
And then there are the less obvious measures. Solar panels through ECO4 (yes, really, though it's less common and usually paired with another measure). Draught-proofing. Hot water tank insulation. Smart heating controls.
One digression worth mentioning: heat batteries are a relatively new addition to the BUS at £2,500. They store cheap off-peak electricity and release it as heat throughout the day. Not many installers are offering them yet, and the technology is still maturing. But for homes on Economy 7 tariffs, they're worth a look. Anyway.
The key thing to understand is that ECO4 and the Warm Homes: Local Grant take a 'whole house' approach. They don't just throw one measure at your home. An assessor visits, looks at what your property needs and recommends a package designed to lift your EPC by at least one band (ideally two). That might mean loft insulation plus a new boiler, or cavity walls plus a heat pump.
How the Warm Homes Plan Compares to Previous Schemes
If you've been paying attention to government energy schemes over the past decade, you'll have noticed a pattern. A scheme launches with fanfare, gets underfunded or poorly administered, closes early and gets replaced by something with a different name that does roughly the same thing.
The Warm Homes Plan is trying to break that cycle. Whether it succeeds is another question.
The most obvious predecessor is the Green Homes Grant, which launched in 2020 and collapsed spectacularly within a year. Vouchers took months to arrive. Installers couldn't get accredited. Homeowners were left mid-project with no funding. It was, by most accounts, a disaster. The National Audit Office said it achieved less than 10% of its original target.
ECO (the Energy Company Obligation) has been running in various forms since 2013 and is by far the most successful delivery mechanism. ECO4, the current version, has funded millions of measures. It works because the obligation sits with energy suppliers, not with a government voucher system. Suppliers have a financial incentive to deliver because they face penalties if they don't.
So how does the Warm Homes Plan compare?
Feature
Green Homes Grant (2020-21)
Warm Homes Plan (2025 onwards)
Delivery model
Central vouchers
Mix of supplier obligation (ECO4), installer-led (BUS), local authority (Local Grant)
Duration
6 months (effectively)
Multi-year commitment to 2028+
Income targeting
Partial
Strong (ECO4 + Local Grant target low income)
Installer availability
Major bottleneck
Better, but still constrained in some regions
Budget
£1.5bn (mostly unspent)
£15bn (committed across Parliament)
The multi-channel delivery is the smart bit. If one route gets blocked, the others keep running. But it also means the system is harder to understand from the outside, which is why articles like this one need to exist.
How to Apply and What to Expect Next
There's no single Warm Homes Plan application.
For the Boiler Upgrade Scheme: contact an MCS-certified heat pump installer. They handle the application. You don't touch paperwork. The grant is deducted from your quote. If you're weighing up your options, our guide to heat pump installation covers the full process, costs and what to expect. Typical timeline from first contact to installation is 4 to 8 weeks, depending on installer availability in your area.
For ECO4: you can either contact your energy supplier directly or go through an authorised ECO installer. Many people find it easier to start with an eligibility check (like ours) that identifies whether you qualify and connects you with an appropriate route. If you're eligible, an assessor visits your home, recommends measures and the work gets scheduled. The whole process can take 2 to 4 months.
For the Warm Homes: Local Grant: contact your local authority. Some have online application forms. Others require a phone call. A few are proactively contacting eligible households based on EPC register data and council tax records. If your council hasn't publicised the scheme yet, that doesn't mean funding isn't available. It sometimes means they're still setting up delivery partnerships.
Look, the application process isn't always smooth. We see delays, especially with ECO4 where supplier capacity gets stretched towards the end of obligation periods. And the Warm Homes: Local Grant is still ramping up in many areas. But the funding is real and the amounts are significant.
Our eligibility checker cross-references all three open schemes against your details. It takes about two minutes and tells you exactly which grants you can access right now, not which ones you might theoretically qualify for if you squint at the criteria. Start there.
Is the Warm Homes Plan the same as the Green Homes Grant?
No. The Green Homes Grant was a specific voucher scheme that ran in 2020-21 and closed early after widespread delivery problems. The Warm Homes Plan is a broader policy framework that bundles several different schemes together, including the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, ECO4 and the Warm Homes: Local Grant. Different name, different structure, and so far, a much longer funding commitment.
Can I get a free heat pump through the Warm Homes Plan?
Potentially, yes. Through ECO4, qualifying low-income households can get a heat pump fully funded. Through the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, you'd still pay the balance after the £7,500 grant, which typically leaves you covering £3,000 to £6,000 depending on the system and property. So 'free' is possible through ECO4 but not through BUS.
Do I need a specific EPC rating to qualify?
It depends on the scheme. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme has no EPC requirement. ECO4 generally requires your home to be rated D, E, F or G. The Warm Homes: Local Grant varies by council but most target homes rated D or below. If you don't have a current EPC, your installer or assessor can arrange one.
I'm not on benefits. Can I still get help?
Yes. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is open to all homeowners regardless of income. You get £7,500 off a heat pump installation with no means test at all.
What happened to the Great British Insulation Scheme?
GBIS closed at the end of March 2026. It previously offered up to £3,000 towards insulation for a wider group of households, including those in council tax bands A to D. If you missed it, the Warm Homes: Local Grant and ECO4 may still cover similar measures depending on your circumstances. We see outdated articles still listing GBIS as available, so double-check any information you find elsewhere.
How long does the whole process take from application to installation?
For the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, expect 4 to 8 weeks. For ECO4, 2 to 4 months is typical, sometimes longer if your area has high demand. The Warm Homes: Local Grant timeline varies significantly by council. Some are turning work around in 6 weeks, others are still building their installer networks. Honestly, this one's hard to predict and we'd be lying if we gave you a firm number.