The Boiler Upgrade Scheme, explained properly

What the scheme is

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is a government grant programme, administered by Ofgem, that pays a fixed £7,500 towards the installation of an air source or ground source heat pump in homes and small non-domestic buildings in England and Wales. It launched in 2022 at £5,000, was raised to £7,500 in October 2023 after take-up disappointed, and has run at that level since — with application volumes now setting records as the higher grant and falling installation prices have shifted the maths. A £5,000 biomass boiler grant exists within the same scheme for rural properties off the gas grid, but heat pumps are the scheme's overwhelming business.

Two design features make the BUS unusually consumer-friendly. The money is deducted from your quote upfront rather than rebated afterwards, so there is no cash-flow gap to bridge. And the application burden sits with the installer, not with you — a deliberate choice to keep paperwork from killing demand. Your entire administrative role is to confirm, when Ofgem emails you, that the installer named on the application is acting with your consent.

What it pays for

• £7,500 — air source heat pumps (air-to-water systems that replace your boiler and heat radiators and hot water)
• £7,500 — ground source and water source heat pumps, including shared ground loop arrangements where several properties draw on one borehole field
• £5,000 — biomass boilers, only in rural off-gas-grid properties with an emissions certificate

The installed system must be capacity-limited to 45 kWth (no domestic property comes near this), must meet minimum efficiency standards, and must be commissioned by an MCS-certified installer — the certification requirement is absolute, and our MCS guide explains how to verify one. Hybrids and air-to-air units are excluded. The heat pump must replace a fossil fuel system (gas, oil, LPG, solid fuel) or direct electric heating; topping up an existing heat pump does not qualify.

Eligibility in one paragraph

You must own the property — owner-occupiers, landlords, and second-home owners all qualify, as do small non-domestic premises within the capacity cap. The property needs a valid EPC issued within the last ten years. Since May 2024 there is no longer any requirement to clear loft or cavity wall insulation recommendations first — a major simplification that older articles still get wrong. New-builds are excluded except self-builds. The full detail, including the edge cases, is on the eligibility page.

What can go wrong (and how to avoid it)

The failure modes are mundane. An expired or missing EPC delays the application — check yours at the government's EPC register before getting quotes, and budget around £60–£120 for a new assessment if needed. Consent emails from Ofgem go unanswered in spam folders, and vouchers lapse when installation slots slip past the redemption window — both fixed by basic diary discipline. The one genuinely costly mistake is signing with a non-MCS installer on price: without certification there is no grant, no SEG-equivalent protections, and no recourse through the scheme. Verification takes two minutes on the MCS website and our installer guide walks through it.

It is also worth sense-checking that the BUS is your best route at all. Households on qualifying benefits may do better under ECO4, which can fund the whole installation rather than £7,500 of it. Scottish residents use Home Energy Scotland rather than the BUS entirely. The country-by-country page sorts this out by postcode logic, and our two-minute checker does it for your specific case.