How much do I pay myself under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme?

That structure answers the self-funded question directly. There is no published figure for what a heat pump installation costs in total, so there is no published figure for the balance a household pays. The self-funded amount is whatever the installer quotes, less the grant. What the scheme does fix is the size of the deduction, and the rule that the deduction must appear in the quote rather than arrive later as a payment.

The scheme is installer-led, applies in England and Wales only, and excludes new-build homes and social housing⁵. Self-build properties are eligible, but only for heat pumps⁷. The rest of this page sets out the figures, the route the money takes, who qualifies, and how the application runs.

What the scheme pays: £7,500 for most homes, £9,000 for oil and LPG

The headline figure is £7,500 for most households, rising to £9,000 where the home uses heating oil or LPG¹. The higher figure is aimed at homes off the gas grid, where the alternative to a heat pump is typically a tank of oil or LPG rather than a mains gas supply⁹. The Commons Library describes the scheme as providing upfront grants of up to £7,500, or £9,000 for heating oil and LPG users, to domestic and small non-domestic properties in England and Wales¹.

The £9,000 rate is recent. Nesta reported in April 2026 that the grant would rise from £7,500 to £9,000 for oil and LPG homes in England and Wales⁵. Before that, the standard figure of £7,500 applied across the board, and Which? recorded one-off payments of up to £7,500 sent as a voucher to registered installers who deduct the grant from the cost payable by the householder⁴.

Biomass sits at a lower level. The grant is £5,000 off the cost and installation of a biomass boiler, and £5,000 for biomass boilers under the property owner guidance³. The Energy Saving Trust notes that a quote for a biomass boiler should have the grant deducted automatically¹¹.

There is a conflict in the official material on the biomass figure. One set of scheme rules gives £5,000, and a separate official notice of approved grant categories and values also lists £5,000 alongside a £2,500 figure that has not been reconciled in the documents³. The £5,000 figure is the one repeated in the current property owner guidance and in the apply page, so it is the figure a household is most likely to see quoted, but the discrepancy is unresolved.

How the grant reaches you: a voucher to your installer, deducted from your bill

The grant never passes through the household's bank account. Ofgem's property owner guidance states that the grant is applied upfront as a discount to the cost of the installation, that the householder does not receive the grant directly, and that it is paid to the installer⁴. The current guidance sets out the flow plainly: the installer redeems the voucher, and Ofgem pays the installer¹⁰.

The practical consequence is that the discount should be visible at quotation stage. Installer guidance tells installers to discount the value of the grant from the total cost paid by the customer and include this in the quote¹³. The same expectation appeared in the scheme's earliest householder leaflet, which said the installer would be expected to discount the value of the grant from the total cost paid and include it in the quote¹⁴. A quote that shows the full price with the grant to be claimed later does not match the published expectation.

The mechanism matters for cash flow. A household does not need to fund the grant portion and wait to be reimbursed; it pays the reduced figure. What it does need is an installer who is registered with the scheme and who will carry the voucher through to redemption. Ofgem's installer guidance describes two stages: a voucher application before work begins, and a voucher redemption application after commissioning¹⁵.

Eligibility: which properties and systems qualify

Eligibility turns on the property, the technology and the ownership. The scheme is targeted towards domestic and non-domestic properties in England and Wales, and self-build properties are eligible¹⁶. New-build homes and social housing are not eligible, although self-build properties are⁶. The grant is available to property owners, including landlords¹⁷.

Self-build eligibility carries a restriction on technology. Self-build properties are only eligible for scheme funding for heat pumps, so a self-builder cannot use the grant towards a biomass boiler⁷. A self-build must also not form part of an excluded property development¹⁸.

The eligible technologies are heat pumps and biomass boilers¹⁹. The scheme exists to cover part of the cost of replacing fossil fuel heating systems with a heat pump or biomass boiler²⁰. Social housing is listed among the ineligible property types¹⁸.

For a landlord, the grant sits alongside the other duties that attach to letting a home, including the landlord duties on energy, heating and home safety and the funding routes open to landlords for energy upgrades. The scheme pays towards the installation; it does not change who is responsible for the property meeting standards.

England and Wales only: where the scheme applies and how the budget is shared

The scheme operates in England and Wales and nowhere else in the UK. Ofgem's installer guidance states that only properties in England and Wales are eligible²¹, and the same extent appears in the scheme evaluation and in the published statistics²². Households in Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate support routes rather than this grant.

The budget is allocated by scheme year. Scheme Year 4, running from April 2025 to March 2026, had a budget of £295,000,000, of which £185,500,000 had been spent and £109,500,000 remained, according to the November 2025 quarterly report²⁵. An earlier report for the same scheme year recorded £78,257,500 allocated between April and July 2025²⁶. The two figures cover different points in the year and different measures of allocation, so they are not directly comparable.

The cumulative total is the clearest measure of scale. The annual report for April 2025 to March 2026 puts the total value of grants paid since the start of the scheme at £560.3 million as of 31 July 2026⁸. The previous annual report, covering April 2024 to March 2025, put the same cumulative total at £328,232,000 as of 31 July 2025²⁷. The scheme's first year budget was £150m for 2022 to 2023²¹.

Budget matters to a household because the scheme is demand-led within each year's allocation. A voucher issued and redeemed draws on that year's money, and the published remaining budget is the figure that indicates how much room is left¹⁰.

How to apply: the installer's role and what you must do

The application is installer-led, with the installer applying for the grant on the property owner's behalf²⁸. Ofgem's property owner guidance is blunt about the householder's position: the scheme is installer-led and you cannot apply yourself⁴. The installer takes the instruction, applies to Ofgem for a voucher, completes the installation, and then applies to redeem the voucher, at which point Ofgem pays the grant to the installer²⁹.

The sequence has more steps than the headline suggests. The consultation that set up the administration described the installer receiving an instruction from the property owner, applying to Ofgem for a voucher, Ofgem contacting the property owner to confirm consent, Ofgem assessing the application and issuing the voucher, the installer completing the installation, the installer applying to redeem the voucher, and Ofgem paying the grant to the installer²⁹. The consent step is the householder's main formal involvement.

Responsibility for meeting the criteria sits with the installer. Ofgem's guidance records an installer responsibility to ensure their application meets the eligibility criteria for the scheme³⁰. That does not remove the householder's need to check that the property qualifies, since a failed application delays the work.

Finding an installer is the householder's own task. Citizens Advice describes getting help with the scheme but having to organise the work yourself³¹, and its separate guidance on finding an installer for energy efficiency work sets out what to look for³². The scheme's own installer list is published by Ofgem¹⁹.

1. Confirm the property qualifies: England or Wales, not a new build, not social housing.
2. Choose a registered installer and get a quote showing the grant as a deduction.
3. The installer applies to Ofgem for a voucher.
4. Ofgem contacts the property owner to confirm consent.
5. The installer completes and commissions the installation.
6. The installer redeems the voucher and Ofgem pays the grant to the installer.

What the grant does and does not do for a household's independence

The grant reduces the upfront cost of moving a home off a fossil fuel boiler, which is the point at which a household stops buying gas, oil or LPG for heating. That is a real shift in energy independence: the fuel is no longer delivered by tanker or drawn from the gas network, and the running cost depends on electricity rather than on a delivered fuel price. For an off-gas-grid home, the £9,000 rate recognises how much larger that step is².

What remains is dependence of a different kind. A heat pump runs on electricity, so the household still relies on the grid and on a supplier. The grant is paid through an installer, so the household depends on that installer's registration and on their handling of the voucher. The scheme itself is administered by Ofgem and funded by government, so its availability depends on the annual budget and on the rules in force at the time of application²⁵.

There is no published total installation cost in the scheme material, so no self-funded figure can be stated as a fact. The honest position is that the self-funded amount is the installer's quote minus the grant, and that the grant is fixed at £7,500, £9,000 or £5,000 depending on the technology and the fuel being replaced¹. Households comparing quotes should look for the deduction as a line item, because that is what the published guidance expects the installer to show¹³.

For homes that cannot use the scheme, including new builds and social housing, other routes exist, and the guide to home energy by home type and household sets out how tenure and property type change what is available. Off-gas-grid households weighing fuels may find the comparison of oil and LPG heating useful alongside the grant figures.