The UK's heat pump grants, in plain English
If you own a home in England or Wales and heat it with a gas, oil, or LPG boiler — or with electric storage heaters — the government will currently pay £7,500 towards replacing that system with a heat pump. That is the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS), and it is the single most generous home energy grant running in 2026. It is not means-tested, it is not a loan, and you never handle the money: your MCS-certified installer claims it from Ofgem and knocks it off your bill. Scotland runs a parallel scheme through Home Energy Scotland that is, if anything, better. Northern Ireland is the gap in the map, with no direct equivalent yet.
This site exists because the official guidance is scattered across gov.uk, Ofgem, MCS, and three devolved administrations, and because a lot of what fills that vacuum online is sales copy pretending to be advice. We keep one job: explain every UK heat pump grant accurately — who qualifies, what you will actually pay after the grant, what the running costs really look like against a boiler, and where the catches are. When the facts change, the pages change.
The headline numbers for 2026
- £7,500 off an air source heat pump (ASHP) in England and Wales via the Boiler Upgrade Scheme
- £7,500 off a ground source heat pump (GSHP) — same grant, same scheme, including shared ground loops
- £7,500 + £1,500 rural uplift in Scotland through Home Energy Scotland, with an optional interest-free loan on top — see the country-by-country guide
- 0% VAT on heat pump installations until 31 March 2027 — automatic, no application needed
- £5,000 for biomass boilers under the BUS in rural, off-gas-grid properties (a niche, but a real one)
- 100% funded installations possible under ECO4 for households on qualifying benefits — a different scheme with different rules
The practical effect: a typical three-bed semi that would have paid around £13,000 for an air source heat pump installation pays £5,500 after the grant. That is no longer "green premium" territory — it is in the same conversation as a like-for-like boiler replacement plus a few radiators, which is exactly the comparison the scheme was designed to win.
Start with the page that matches your question
"How does the grant actually work?" The Boiler Upgrade Scheme explained — where the money comes from, how the voucher process runs, what your installer does, and the application steps on gov.uk.
"Do I qualify?" The eligibility guide — ownership, EPC requirements, which heating systems count as "replaceable", the 45 kWth capacity cap, and the small-non-domestic route that landlords and small businesses miss.
"What will I pay?" Two cost pages with real 2026 numbers: air source costs after the grant and ground source costs after the grant, including the radiator, cylinder, and ground-works items quotes bury.
"Will it cost more to run than my boiler?" The running costs comparison — gas, oil, LPG, and electric baselines against a heat pump at realistic efficiencies, on standard and heat-pump tariffs.
"Who can install it?" The MCS installer guide — why certification is a hard requirement for the grant, how to verify an installer, and the questions that separate good from cheap.
"Do they even work in winter?" The myths page — cold-weather performance, radiator upsizing, noise, insulation, and the other objections, tested against evidence rather than folklore.
Why the grant exists — and why it may not last forever
Heating is the UK's largest single source of household emissions: around 14% of the national total comes from gas boilers. The government's Clean Heat Market Mechanism now obliges boiler manufacturers to sell rising numbers of heat pumps, and the BUS is the demand-side half of that bargain — public money to close the upfront cost gap while the supply chain scales. The scheme has a fixed budget allocated by spending review, and uptake has accelerated sharply: recent years have seen record application volumes, with the budget for each year capped. Nobody can promise the £7,500 figure survives the next fiscal event. What we can say is that in 2026 it is live, it is claimable, and the 0% VAT window that compounds it has a published end date of 31 March 2027. If a heat pump is in your plans, the financial case for acting inside this window is straightforward.
What claiming actually involves — the 60-second version
The process is shorter than its reputation. You get quotes from two or three MCS-certified installers, each showing the £7,500 deducted as a line item. You accept one. The installer applies to Ofgem for your voucher — you fill in nothing — and Ofgem emails you once to confirm the installer is acting with your consent. Reply, and the voucher issues, valid for three months on an air source system or six on ground source. The installer fits and commissions the system, registers it with MCS, redeems the voucher, and invoices you for the post-grant balance only. The single document you must have in order beforehand is an EPC issued within the last ten years; if yours has lapsed, a £60–£120 assessment fixes it inside a week. In Scotland the sequence differs — you apply yourself through Home Energy Scotland and need approval before work starts — which is one of several reasons the country guide is worth two minutes of your time before you do anything else.
Timing is the underrated variable. Installer diaries fill from September; households who start the process in spring get keener prices, shorter waits, and a system commissioned and tuned before the first cold snap asks it to perform. The voucher windows also reward preparedness: agree your installation slot before the application goes in, and the three-month clock never comes close to mattering.
The honest caveats
Three things this site will always tell you that brochures will not. First, a heat pump is a system change, not a boiler swap — flow temperatures drop, some radiators may need upsizing, and a hot water cylinder is usually required, all of which belongs in the quote, not in the surprises column. Second, running-cost savings depend on installation quality: a system designed to run at 35–45°C flow temperature delivers the efficiency the brochure promises, while a rushed install running at 55°C quietly doesn't. Third, the grant's biggest practical constraint is installer capacity — good MCS firms book out weeks ahead in autumn. Start the process in spring or summer and the whole experience improves. If your situation doesn't suit a heat pump — some homes genuinely don't — the honest answer is to say so, and we do.