Child Winter Heating Payment in Scotland

The Child Winter Heating Payment is a one-off, tax-free payment made during the winter to help disabled children and young people and their families with their heating costs¹. It is a benefit from the Scottish Government, paid once a year from October and through the winter, and it was first paid in 2020². For winter 2025/26 the payment was £255.80 per eligible child, and it rises to £265.50 for winter 2026/27³. No application is needed for families living in Scotland: if a child qualifies, the money arrives automatically in the same bank account their disability benefit is paid into⁵.

The payment exists because the Scottish Government recognised that families caring for a disabled child often face higher heating bills than other households. The policy reasoning set out when the scheme was created was that these families incur increased costs, including from needing to heat their homes through the night or for periods of the night because another person must provide care and support throughout the night due to a disability or condition⁶. The payment is intended to ease the financial pressure of winter fuel bills for exactly that group⁶.

A Scottish payment for families of disabled children

The Child Winter Heating Payment is one of the payments the Scottish Government now makes to keep homes warm over winter, sitting alongside the Winter Heating Payment for low income households and the Pension Age Winter Heating Payment for older people. It used to be called Child Winter Heating Assistance, and the name changed when the scheme was reclassified as a benefit rather than an assistance payment². The change of name is worth knowing because older guidance, and some benefit letters, still use the former name.

The scheme began in November 2020, delivered by Social Security Scotland, the agency the Scottish Government created to administer devolved benefits⁷. When it was introduced, the payment was a flat £200 for each eligible child or young person⁶. It has been uprated each year since, reaching £214.10 for winter 2022/23⁸ and £255.80 for winter 2025/26³. Official statistics on the scheme are published with breakdowns by child age, local authority, and the recipient's age and number of eligible children, so the scale of the scheme across Scotland is publicly tracked⁷.

The payment is not a loan, not a discount on a bill and not tied to any particular fuel. It is cash, paid to the family, to spend as they see fit on heating or anything else. That matters for households that heat with oil, LPG or electricity rather than mains gas, because a cash payment works the same way whatever the fuel.

Eligibility rules: care component and age criteria

Eligibility rests on the disability benefit the child or young person receives, not on the family's income. A child or young person qualifies if they are under 19 and were entitled, on at least one day during the qualifying week, to one of the following³:

• the highest rate of the care component of Disability Living Allowance for children
• the highest rate of the care component of Child Disability Payment
• the enhanced rate of the daily living component of Personal Independence Payment
• the enhanced rate of the daily living component of Adult Disability Payment

The age limit is under 19³. The benefit rule is what carries the weight here: only the highest rate of the care component, or the enhanced rate of the daily living component, opens the door. A child receiving the middle or lower rate of the care component does not qualify, however high the family's heating costs are. The rationale is that the highest care rates are paid where a child needs substantial care, including at night, which is the pattern of need the payment was designed to support⁶.

The original scheme covered children entitled to the highest rate of the care component of DLA or Child Disability Payment. Eligibility was later extended to young people entitled to the enhanced rate of the daily living component of PIP during the qualifying week, so that a young person moving from a child's benefit to an adult's benefit did not lose winter support on their 16th birthday⁶.

The payment amount: £265.50 for each qualifying child

The payment for winter 2025/26 is £255.80³. It will rise to £265.50 in winter 2026/27⁴, which is the figure Social Security Scotland now gives as the current payment². The payment is made per eligible child or young person, not per household, so a family with two eligible children receives two payments⁵.

The Scottish Government allocated £11.4 million to the Child Winter Heating Payment for the winter of 2025, alongside an estimated £28.3 million for the Winter Heating Payment¹⁰. The longer trajectory of the scheme's budget shows steady growth: the Scottish Government's allocations were £4.90 million in 2021/22, £5.70 million in 2022/23, £7.70 million in 2023/24 and £10.20 million in 2024/25¹¹. That growth reflects both the annual uprating of the payment and the extension of eligibility to young people on adult disability benefits.

The qualifying week in September

Eligibility is decided by reference to a single week in September. The qualifying week is the third full week in September⁵; for winter 2025/26 it was 15 to 21 September 2025³. The child or young person needs to have been entitled to one of the qualifying benefits on at least one day during that week³.

This design has practical consequences. A benefit award that begins after the qualifying week does not count for that winter, even if it is later backdated, unless the backdating reaches into the qualifying week itself. Conversely, an award that ends after the qualifying week still counts, because entitlement during the week is what matters. The September date is deliberately early: it gives Social Security Scotland the autumn to identify eligible children from benefit records and pay them before the coldest months, with the scheme designed to ensure the support is delivered by 31 December each year¹².

The September qualifying week also distinguishes the Child Winter Heating Payment from the Winter Heating Payment, whose qualifying week falls in early November¹³. A family could in principle be affected by both schemes in the same winter, on different qualifying dates.

No application needed: the automatic payment

Families in Scotland do not need to apply. Social Security Scotland uses the data it already holds from the disability benefits system to identify eligible children and pay them automatically⁵. Eligible children and young people living in Scotland receive the payment without a claim⁸. Most payments are made in October or November⁵, and for winter 2025/26 most were made automatically from early October 2025¹⁵.

The automatic design was a deliberate feature of the scheme. When the Scottish Government set it up, the delivery model through the new Social Security Scotland agency was contrasted with the Department for Work and Pensions approach, and the absence of an application form was intended to avoid barriers for the families the payment targets⁶. For a household caring for a disabled child, that means one less form in a life that already involves a great deal of administration.

The one group that does need to make a claim is families living outside Scotland, covered below. Everyone else relies on the accuracy of the records held for DLA, Child Disability Payment, PIP or Adult Disability Payment, which is why a missed payment is usually worth querying rather than assuming a refusal.

Timing of the payment and its destination

The payment is made once a year from October and through the winter², with most payments made in October or November⁵. It is paid directly into the same bank or building society account where the family is normally paid, specifically the same account as the child's DLA for children, Child Disability Payment, PIP or Adult Disability Payment⁵.

The scheme is designed so that the money is delivered by 31 December each year¹². If the payment has not arrived by that date, the guidance is to contact Social Security Scotland⁴. Unlike the Winter Heating Payment, which is paid from December and through the winter and can arrive as late as February¹³, the Child Winter Heating Payment is front-loaded into the autumn, which gets the money to families before the deepest part of winter.

Because the payment goes into the same account as the disability benefit, a family that changes bank accounts should make sure the benefit payment account is up to date, since a stale account detail is one of the ordinary ways an automatic payment goes astray.

More than one eligible child: each one is paid

The payment is per child, not per household. If there is more than one child or young person who qualifies in the household, each of them will get a payment¹⁵. Citizens Advice Scotland states the same rule: if you have more than one eligible child or young person in the household, they will each get the payment⁵.

So a family with two children who both receive the highest rate of the care component of DLA receives two payments of £255.80 for winter 2025/26, a total of £511.60³. The rule answers a question families commonly ask: the payment is not capped at one per family, and there is no household means test that reduces the second payment. What matters for each child is their own benefit entitlement during the qualifying week⁶.

Being beyond Scotland's borders in the qualifying week

The payment is a Scottish benefit, but living outside Scotland during the qualifying week does not automatically end eligibility. A family that did not live in Scotland during the qualifying week might still be eligible if they lived in a certain European Economic Area country or Switzerland, and they must be able to prove a "genuine and sufficient link to Scotland"¹⁵. This is the one situation in which a claim is needed rather than an automatic payment, and if the claim is successful, the family might get a back payment for each year that they were eligible¹⁵.

There is a hard exclusion list. A person is not eligible if they live in Greece, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, France or Malta¹⁵. The distinction matters for families who have moved abroad but retain strong ties to Scotland, and for families planning a move, since the qualifying week in September fixes the position for the whole winter that follows.

Tax-free, and protected from benefit calculations

The payment is tax-free¹. It does not count as income when a household's entitlement to other benefits is worked out⁴, and getting it should not affect other benefits the family receives⁵. Two specific protections are worth noting:

• If the family gets Universal Credit, a Child Winter Heating Payment is not counted as savings for 52 weeks⁵.
• If the family applies for Council Tax Reduction, the payment should not be taken into account as income⁵.

This treatment is consistent with the wider family of winter payments: the Winter Heating Payment likewise does not affect any other benefits¹³. The design intent is that the money supports heating costs without clawing back support elsewhere in the benefit system, so a family does not lose a pound of Universal Credit for every pound of winter help received.

If the payment does not arrive, and how to challenge a decision

The scheme is designed to deliver the money by 31 December each year¹², and most payments are made in October or November⁵. Where a payment has not arrived by 31 December, Social Security Scotland is the contact point⁴. A person who believes a payment was missed can ask Social Security Scotland to look at their data again and consider whether they are eligible; the agency then either pays them if they are eligible or writes to explain its decision¹³.

If Social Security Scotland decides a child is not eligible, the family can ask for a redetermination, which means the decision is looked at again. The deadline is 42 days from the day you are told you are not getting the payment⁵. That is notably longer than the time limits on the comparable UK Government schemes: for Winter Fuel Payment decisions you are usually given one month to dispute, via a mandatory reconsideration¹⁷, and for Pension Age Winter Heating Payment decisions you will usually be given one month to dispute¹⁸. If you still disagree after a redetermination, you can appeal to an independent tribunal¹⁸.

Comparing the Child Winter Heating Payment with the Winter Heating Payment

Scotland now runs two winter heating payments with similar names and different purposes, and confusing them is easy. The Winter Heating Payment is a one-off payment made in Scotland during the winter to help people with heating costs, targeted at people on low income qualifying benefits¹⁴. The Child Winter Heating Payment is targeted at families of disabled children regardless of income, through the disability benefit route³.

Neither payment depends on how cold the weather is². This is a deliberate break with the Cold Weather Payment that previously operated in Scotland, which paid only after a sustained period of cold in a specific area; the UK Government's Cold Weather Payment continues on that basis in England and Wales, while people in Scotland get the Winter Heating Payment instead, regardless of weather conditions in their area¹⁹. A household could receive both Scottish payments in the same winter if it meets both sets of conditions, on the two different qualifying weeks. The Pension Age Winter Heating Payment is a third, separate scheme for older people, paying between £105.55 and £316.70²⁰. More detail is on our pages for the Winter Heating Payment and the Pension Age Winter Heating Payment.

What the payment does, and does not, do for a household's energy security

The Child Winter Heating Payment is a modest but reliable contribution to a household's winter energy costs. Its strengths are its predictability and its low friction: it is automatic, tax-free, protected from benefit calculations, paid per child, and unaffected by weather or by how mild or severe the winter turns out to be². For a family heating a home through the night because a child needs care at night, £255.80 towards the winter's bills is real money, and the fact that it arrives in October or November, before the coldest weather, is part of the design⁵.

What it does not do is make a household energy independent. The payment is a subsidy towards bills, not a reduction in the household's dependence on its supplier, its heating fuel and the price set for both. It does not insulate a home, upgrade a heating system or reduce the amount of energy a family must buy, and it does not change the fact that a household facing a cold snap is still exposed to whatever its supplier charges. Its scale is also limited: £255.80 is a fraction of a winter's heating bill for most families, and the Scottish Government's own framing is of mitigation for increased costs, not removal of them⁶.

Families looking to reduce the underlying cost of heating a home, rather than receiving help with bills, can look at the wider landscape of home energy support across the four nations, including the Home Energy Scotland grant and loan scheme, and at the wider picture of fuel poverty in Scotland, since the Child Winter Heating Payment sits within a Scottish fuel poverty strategy that treats cold homes as a structural problem rather than a seasonal one.