Warm Homes Plan funding explained, every UK home energy grant in one place
Warm Homes Plan funding is the simplest way to describe almost every home energy grant in the UK right now, and getting it is rarely about filling in a single form. The Warm Homes Plan is the government's flagship home-energy programme, published in January 2026, with around 15 billion pounds of public investment to upgrade up to five million homes by 2030. It is not one grant you apply for, it is an umbrella strategy that funds several real schemes and adds a new finance route on top. That money flows through the Energy Company Obligation (ECO4), the Great British Insulation Scheme, the 7,500 pound Boiler Upgrade Scheme, the council-delivered Warm Homes: Local Grant, and a planned low or zero-interest finance route for households who do not qualify for grants. Securing Warm Homes Plan funding means working out which of those routes fits your home or business, and applying to that one. This hub maps all of them in plain English, with the official gov.uk and Ofgem links so you can verify everything yourself.
What the funding covers and who qualifies
The Warm Homes Plan covers insulation, air source heat pumps, solar PV, batteries and smart controls, primarily for homes, with some scope for community and smaller commercial buildings under consultation. Who qualifies depends entirely on which sub-scheme you use, because each one has its own test. ECO4 is the fully funded, whole-house route for fuel-poor homes in EPC band D to G on qualifying means-tested benefits such as Universal Credit, Pension Credit, income-based JSA or ESA, Income Support, Housing Benefit and Tax Credits. The Great British Insulation Scheme funds a single insulation measure and has two routes: a Low-Income Group on those same benefits, and a broader General Group open to homes in Council Tax bands A to D in England (A to E in Scotland and Wales) with an EPC of D or below, no benefit required. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is open to any homeowner in England or Wales replacing a fossil-fuel system, regardless of income. The Warm Homes: Local Grant, delivered by councils, is for lower-income owner-occupiers and private renters in England, EPC band D to G, with a typical test of gross household income under 36,000 pounds and savings under 16,000 pounds (postcode or qualifying-benefit routes can override). Eligibility is broader than most people assume, which is why we run you through all four routes rather than letting an assumed no cost you a funded upgrade, where eligible and subject to scheme rules at the time.
The measures it can fund and how they are assessed
Because the Warm Homes Plan is a programme rather than a single product, the right way to think about it is matching your household to the correct route, not specifying a system in kilowatts. The measures span insulation (loft, cavity wall, solid wall, room-in-roof and underfloor), heat pumps, solar PV, batteries and smart controls. They are not picked at random. Government-funded retrofit is fabric-first and follows a whole-house assessment, so a qualified retrofit assessor surveys the property, a coordinator plans the measures in the right order (insulation before heating, for example), and the work is documented rather than a one-size install. A funded home package typically combines insulation, an air source heat pump and smart controls, with an installed value in the region of 5,000 to 25,000 pounds per home depending on the property. Under ECO4 specifically, whole-house retrofit packages frequently exceed 15,000 pounds in installed value at no cost to eligible households. The point of the fabric-first sequence is efficiency: insulating before a heat pump goes in is what makes the heat pump run well and the bills lower.
How the money is accessed and combined with other support
There is no single Warm Homes Plan application, so the practical routes are the sub-schemes themselves. ECO4 and the Great British Insulation Scheme are applied for through an obligated energy supplier, the gov.uk eligibility checker, or a TrustMark-registered installer. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is different in a reassuring way: the grant is applied for by your MCS-certified installer on your behalf and deducted directly from their invoice, so you never receive or hand over the money, you only pay the balance. The Warm Homes: Local Grant is applied for through the gov.uk apply page or your local authority, not your energy supplier. These routes can be combined. A household might use the Boiler Upgrade Scheme for a heat pump and ECO4 or the Great British Insulation Scheme for the insulation, so the fabric work is funded separately and the heat pump runs efficiently. Where a grant covers most but not all of a job, the Warm Homes Plan introduces a multi-billion-pound finance route offering low or zero-interest loans for households who do not qualify for grants, designed to bridge the gap between a generous grant and the full install cost. For businesses and commercial landlords, the domestic schemes largely do not apply, so the main route is capital allowances: the 100 percent Annual Investment Allowance lets a business write off qualifying plant such as solar PV, heat pumps and batteries, worth up to a 25 percent effective tax saving in year one. Our cost guide sets out where grants stop and finance or tax relief begins, and the grants and funding guide details each scheme in turn.
Compliance and quality requirements
The work behind Warm Homes Plan funding is governed by real standards, and those standards are also your protection. Government-funded measures follow the PAS 2035 and PAS 2030 whole-house retrofit framework, with a qualified retrofit assessor, a retrofit coordinator, and lodgement of the completed work with TrustMark. TrustMark registration is required for ECO4 and Great British Insulation Scheme measures. Heat pumps must be installed by an MCS-certified installer, which is mandatory for Boiler Upgrade Scheme grants, and that installer must belong to an approved consumer code, either RECC or HIES. Electrical work falls under NICEIC or NAPIT. On planning, most domestic insulation and air source heat pump installs are Permitted Development, but solid or external wall insulation can need planning permission in conservation areas, air source heat pumps have siting and noise conditions under MCS 020, and listed buildings need Listed Building Consent for external changes. A PAS 2035 retrofit assessor flags any consents needed before work starts. This accredited route is exactly what separates legitimate Warm Homes Plan funding from a doorstep scam: a real scheme never cold-calls demanding upfront payment or bank details, so if that happens, it is not the Warm Homes Plan.
How we help with eligibility and delivery
Our role is to keep you on the right side of a fast-changing programme. The legacy schemes are closing on firm dates: ECO4 runs to 31 December 2026 with a final application date of 31 March 2026, and the Great British Insulation Scheme closes to new measures on 31 March 2026. There will be no ECO5, the supplier-obligation model is replaced by the Warm Homes Plan from 2027. We track that transition so you never apply to a scheme that has already shut, and we map every live route rather than the one that earns the most. We check the tests that actually decide eligibility (benefit status, EPC band, Council Tax band, income), tell you honestly which scheme fits, and route you only through MCS-certified and TrustMark-registered installers, never a doorstep cold-caller. We are equally honest about outcomes: insulation almost always lowers bills, while a heat pump lowers carbon and, paired with a well-insulated home and the right tariff, can lower running costs against oil or LPG (against mains gas the saving depends on tariffs). Whatever the route, we point you to the official gov.uk eligibility checker so you can confirm everything yourself before committing, subject to scheme rules at the time.
An illustrative example
As an illustrative composite, and not a named client, consider a 1960s semi-detached owner-occupied home in EPC band E, lived in by a family receiving Universal Credit, with an old boiler, no cavity insulation and a draughty single-glazed back room. Under the ECO4 whole-house route, that home could receive cavity wall and loft insulation, a new air source heat pump and smart heating controls as one bundled package, installed under PAS 2035 with TrustMark lodgement at no cost to the family, the fabric work done before the heating. In an illustrative case like this the EPC could move from E up toward C with the damp resolved once the fabric-first insulation is in. Every figure and outcome here is illustrative only and depends entirely on your property, your eligibility and the live scheme rules at the time you apply.
Not sure which route fits you? Start with the full grants and funding guide, see what you might pay on the cost page, then tell us about your home and we will point you to the right scheme. You can also read the funding FAQs, or look at the closing schemes in detail on our ECO4 page and our Great British Insulation Scheme page.
