Heat Pump Grant Eligibility Checker: What the Boiler Upgrade Scheme Rules Actually Say

The honest version of any heat pump grant eligibility checker fits in a paragraph: you need to own a property in England or Wales, be replacing a fossil-fuel or electric heating system (not an existing low-carbon one), have a valid EPC, and use an MCS-certified installer who applies for the voucher on your behalf. Get all four right and the Boiler Upgrade Scheme pays £7,500 towards an air source or ground source heat pump, or £5,000 towards a biomass boiler [1].

Air-to-air heat pumps — the technology behind reversible air conditioning — are now in the scheme at £2,500 [1][4]. Two conditions decide most air-to-air enquiries before anything else does: the property must be residential, and it cannot be left with any fossil fuel heating [8]. The section below sets out what that means in practice.

Here's the position most guides bury: the biggest reason people lose this grant isn't property type. It's sequencing. You cannot install first and claim later.

Heat pump grant eligibility checker: quick self-score

Answer these eight questions. Yes to all of them puts you in likely eligible. One or two "not sure" answers means possibly eligible, and worth a property-specific check rather than a shrug. A firm no on questions 1 to 4 means not eligible yet.

1. Do you own the property (owner-occupier, landlord or business owner)?
2. Is it in England or Wales?
3. Is it a home, or a small-to-medium non-domestic building? [2]
4. Is it something other than a new-build or social housing? [2]
5. Are you replacing oil, gas, LPG, coal or direct electric heating?
6. Do you have a valid EPC for the property?
7. Is the proposed system within the scheme's 45kWth capacity limit? [3]
8. Has no previous public funding gone towards the same heating system?

Two numbers set your urgency. The £1,500 off-gas-grid uplift, which lifts an air or ground source grant to £9,000, is available until 31 March 2027 [1]. And once your installer secures a voucher, it has a limited redemption window: three months for air source and biomass, six months for ground and water source [3].

What is the Boiler Upgrade Scheme heat pump grant?

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is the main government grant for low-carbon heating in England and Wales, funded by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and administered by Ofgem. It covers homes and small or medium non-domestic buildings [2], and it runs on vouchers rather than cash: your installer applies to Ofgem, the grant value is deducted from your quote, and Ofgem pays the installer directly once the job is signed off [3].

Scotland and Northern Ireland are outside the scheme entirely. Scottish households go through Home Energy Scotland, which offers its own grant and interest-free loan package. Northern Ireland has no direct equivalent. If you're comparing home heating grants UK-wide, that boundary matters more than any other single rule, and it's the one that generic "heat pump grants UK eligibility" pages most often blur.

The scheme is funded to run to 2028, with budget increases announced in 2025 [4]. That's longer than most support schemes have lasted, but the uplift inside it is time-limited, which is why the deadline deserves more attention than the headline figure.

Heat pump grant amounts by technology type

There is no single heat pump grant figure. Support is set per technology, and the differences are large enough to change which system makes financial sense for your property.

The £2,500 air-to-air grant, and who it is actually for

The air-to-air figure is the newest part of the scheme and the most widely misreported — including by pages that state, incorrectly, that it is restricted to homes replacing storage heaters. It is not. The rule is the same one that applies to every technology in the scheme: the installation must replace either a fossil fuel heating system or an electric heating system [8], as set out in the scheme regulations [9].

What is specific to air-to-air is narrower and, for most enquiries, more decisive.

Residential properties only. Air-to-air heat pumps can only be installed in residential properties under the scheme; a commercial or other non-residential building is excluded for this technology, even though the rest of the scheme reaches small and medium non-domestic premises [8].

The property cannot be left with fossil fuel heating. The new system must be sized to meet the property's full space heating need, any supplementary appliance must not be fossil-fuelled, and hybrid arrangements combining a heat pump with fossil fuel heating are excluded outright [8]. This is where gas-heated homes actually come unstuck. You are not barred from claiming because you have a gas boiler — you are barred if you keep it. A house that adds air-to-air upstairs and retains the gas boiler for the radiators fails, regardless of what anyone claims it replaced.

Hot water still has to come from somewhere. The system must be capable of meeting the property's full space heating and hot water needs, alone or with a supplementary appliance [8]. An air-to-air heat pump does not heat water, so the property needs a non-fossil route to hot water — typically an immersion or a heat pump cylinder — for the application to hold together.

Read together, those conditions explain why the practical audience for the £2,500 is electrically heated homes: flats, converted buildings and properties with no radiator circuit, where there is no gas system to remove and installing wet pipework would cost more than the heating system itself. That is a description of who it usually suits, not a rule about who may apply.

Where it does apply, it is a good fit for flats, converted buildings and homes with no radiator circuit at all, where installing wet pipework would cost more than the heating system itself. If that describes your property, it's worth understanding how air-to-air systems differ from conventional air conditioning before you compare quotes, because the hardware overlaps but the grant treatment does not.

One practical caveat matters more than any of the above right now. Both the installer and the product must hold MCS certification, and as of mid-2026 no air-to-air products had been listed on the MCS product directory — so vouchers for air-to-air installations could not yet be issued in practice, even for properties that qualify on paper [10][11]. Treat any quote that discounts £2,500 up front as something to verify before you sign: ask the installer to confirm the specific unit's MCS listing and that Ofgem has issued the voucher.

One capacity rule cuts across all of them: systems above 45kWth fall outside the scheme [3]. Larger homes and commercial premises hit this ceiling more often than people expect.

The £9,000 off-gas-grid heat pump grant uplift and its 31 March 2027 deadline

In 2025, the government added £1,500 on top of the standard £7,500, taking air and ground source heat pump support to £9,000 for eligible properties that are off the mains gas grid and currently heated by oil or LPG [1][4]. Roughly speaking, it is aimed at the households facing the highest running costs and the weakest alternatives.

Three conditions carry the most weight:

• The property has no mains gas connection.
• The existing system is oil, LPG or another eligible off-grid fossil fuel.
• The installation completes within the window: the uplift applies until 31 March 2027 [1].

Treat that date as a live constraint, not a footnote. Ground source projects in particular can take months between survey, drilling and commissioning, so a job quoted in late 2026 needs a realistic completion plan. When you request quotes, ask installers to confirm in writing whether the £9,000 or the £7,500 figure is reflected in the price, and what happens if the timetable slips past the cutoff.

Homeowner eligibility checklist: property, EPC and existing heating

Work through this in order. It mirrors the checks Ofgem's process applies [3].

Ownership. You must own the property. Owner-occupiers and landlords both qualify; tenants cannot apply, and neither can someone acting without the owner's consent.

Location. England or Wales [2].

What you're replacing. The grant supports moving away from fossil fuel or electric heating [8]. Replacing an existing heat pump, or a system already connected to a heat network, does not qualify. A working oil boiler, an old gas boiler, night storage heaters and LPG systems all do. The same rule covers the air-to-air £2,500 strand — but see above: the property must be residential and must not be left with any fossil fuel heating [8].

Full replacement, not a hybrid patch. The new system must meet the property's full space heating and, in most cases, hot water demand. Keeping the old boiler as a backup is where applications get complicated.

Valid EPC. You need a current Energy Performance Certificate for the property. The EPC's insulation recommendations have been the most frequently amended rule in the scheme's history, so ask your installer to confirm what applies on the day they submit, rather than relying on advice written a year ago [5][6].

Capacity. Up to 45kWth [3]. Larger period properties can exceed this once heat loss is calculated properly.

No double funding. If public money has already paid towards the same heating system, through an ECO measure, a local authority retrofit scheme, or the old Renewable Heat Incentive, you cannot stack the Boiler Upgrade Scheme on top. Your installer will ask you to declare this, and the declaration is checked.

Heat pump grant for landlords and businesses: the non-domestic path

Landlords and business owners are eligible, but they are not homeowners with an asterisk. The checks differ enough to need their own route.

Landlords. You qualify as the property owner, so tenant consent and access are practical issues rather than eligibility ones. The EPC requirement applies to each individual property, and with a portfolio that means several separate assessments, not one. Multi-unit buildings raise a further question: whether each flat has its own heating system or shares a communal one, because communal systems are handled differently. Landlords weighing air-to-air installations in tenanted flats also have equipment-longevity decisions to make, and brand choice for rental properties tends to matter more where you're not the one operating the system daily.

Businesses. The scheme covers small and medium non-domestic buildings [2], which brings in offices, shops, workshops, village halls and similar premises. One exclusion matters more than any other here, and it is easy to miss: air-to-air heat pumps cannot be grant-funded in a non-residential building at all [8]. If your interest is reversible air conditioning for business premises, the £2,500 is not available to you, whatever a quote says. The £7,500 air-to-water route remains open. Beyond that, the two constraints that bite hardest are the 45kWth capacity ceiling [3] and electrical capacity at the building itself. A commercial-scale system can exceed both. Before you commission a survey, check what your incoming supply and distribution board can actually take, because electrical capacity limits surface late and expensively. It's also worth understanding commercial system costs per kW so you can judge what proportion of the project a £2,500 or £7,500 grant realistically covers.

Property exclusions: new-build, social housing and self-build rules

Two categories are out. New-build homes are excluded, on the reasoning that low-carbon heating should be designed in from the start, and social housing is excluded because it is funded through separate programmes such as the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund [2].

The exception catches people out in the other direction. Self-build properties are eligible [2]. If you have built, or are building, your own home and it has never been sold as a completed dwelling, you can apply. That single distinction is worth the length of this section, because plenty of self-builders read "new-build homes are not eligible" and stop reading.

Also excluded: properties where a heat network already provides heating, and social housing that has been transferred but remains within a registered provider's stock. If your property sits in an unusual category, such as a converted barn recently brought into residential use or a former commercial unit, that's a "possibly eligible" answer, and it needs checking against your specific title and EPC rather than a general rule.

How the installer-led voucher process actually works

You cannot apply for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme yourself. An MCS-certified installer applies to Ofgem for the voucher, with your consent, and the grant value comes off your quote before you pay anything [3].

That last point is worth holding onto, because it is where homeowners lose money to confusion rather than to the rules. You should never be asked to pay the full undiscounted cost and reclaim the grant afterwards. There is no reimbursement route: Ofgem pays your installer directly, so the grant is deducted from what you are invoiced and you pay the balance [3][12]. An installer who asks for the whole sum upfront on the promise of a refund has either misunderstood the scheme or is not operating it.

The sequence, in order:

1. Get quotes from MCS-certified installers.
2. Your chosen installer confirms eligibility and applies for the voucher.
3. Ofgem issues the voucher and you accept it, usually by email or phone.
4. Installation completes within the voucher window: three months for air source and biomass, six months for ground and water source [3].
5. The installer redeems the voucher and Ofgem pays them.

Install before that voucher exists and there is no retrospective claim. None. This is the failure mode worth repeating, because a homeowner who replaces a failed oil boiler in January and discovers the scheme in March has lost £9,000 that was available to them the whole time [5][7].

Heat pump grant eligibility checker FAQs

Do I qualify for the £9,000 heat pump grant? Only if your property has no mains gas connection, currently runs on oil or LPG, and the installation completes by 31 March 2027 [1].

Can landlords get a heat pump grant? Yes. Landlords qualify as property owners, with a valid EPC required for each property.

Is a new-build eligible? No, but self-build homes are [2].

Can I get a grant for air-to-air heat pumps? Yes — £2,500, in residential properties only, and the home must not be left with any fossil fuel heating [8]. Having a gas boiler now does not disqualify you; keeping it does. Certified products also need to be listed with MCS before a voucher can be issued [10][11].

Can a business get the £2,500 for air-to-air? No. Air-to-air is restricted to residential properties under the scheme [8].

Does it cover Scotland or Northern Ireland? No. England and Wales only [2]. Scottish households apply through Home Energy Scotland.

What if I've already had public funding for my heating? You cannot claim twice for the same system.

Next steps if you're likely eligible

Gather three things before you contact anyone: your current EPC (check the date), details of your existing heating fuel and whether you have a mains gas connection, and any record of previous grants or funding on the property. That is enough for an MCS-certified installer to give you a firm answer in one conversation.

If you scored "possibly eligible", don't self-disqualify. Unusual property types and older EPCs are exactly the cases where a specific check beats a general rule, and the 2027 uplift deadline is close enough that finding out now is worth more than finding out in eighteen months.