Warm Home Discount and Universal Credit: who gets the £150

The Warm Home Discount is a one-off £150 off your electricity bill each winter. The amount is fixed in law: the Warm Home Discount (England and Wales) Regulations 2026 and the Warm Home Discount (Scotland) Regulations 2026 both define the rebate as £150, and the government has decided to keep the scheme running for five more winters, to 2030/31. The money is not paid to you. Your electricity supplier credits your account, and regulation 11(7) says it must tell you, on your bill or in writing, that the credit is a Warm Home Discount rebate. If the same company supplies your gas and electricity, you can ask for the credit on your gas account instead. Ofgem says most eligible customers get the discount between October and March, and the regulations set a firm deadline: where your supplier is told about you by 1 March, it must pay by 31 March, which for this winter means 31 March 2027. The scheme is closed at the moment, and gov.uk says it reopens in October 2026 for winter 2026 to 2027. The £150 is the same whichever qualifying benefit you get.

In England and Wales, yes, if three things were true on the qualifying date, 23 August 2026: you (or your partner, as recorded by DWP) were getting Universal Credit; you or your partner were named on the electricity bill; and your electricity supplier is part of the scheme. That is the whole test. The eligibility statement for 2026 to 2027, which DESNZ must publish under regulation 10 of the 2026 Regulations, lists four qualifying benefits: Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, and Pension Credit (Guarantee Credit and Savings Credit). There is no earnings limit, work test or disability condition attached to Universal Credit, so a working claimant with a small award qualifies in the same way as someone whose award includes the health element, which the health element calculator works out. The home must be your sole or main residence (regulation 9(2)). Most large suppliers take part: the gov.uk list for winter 2026 to 2027 includes British Gas, EDF, E.ON Next, Octopus Energy, OVO, ScottishPower, Utilita and Utility Warehouse, among others, and any licensed electricity supplier with at least 1,000 domestic customers has to join. If you are part way through moving to Universal Credit (see the Universal Credit migration timetable), the statement says the switch should not stop you qualifying. What counts is the benefit you were getting on 23 August 2026.

The change took effect for winter 2025 to 2026, so this is the second winter of the wider scheme. Before then, households in England and Wales on a means-tested benefit other than Pension Credit Guarantee Credit (the old Core Group 2) only qualified if their property also passed a high-cost-to-heat threshold. The government consulted in February 2025 on removing that threshold, so that all households on means-tested benefits would get the £150, and confirmed in June 2025 that it would go ahead. The Warm Home Discount (Amendment) Regulations 2025 came into force on 18 September 2025 and let the government send suppliers rebate notices up to 31 March 2026 instead of 1 March, and the eligibility statement published on 30 September 2025 made everyone named on the bill who got a qualifying benefit eligible. The effect was large. DESNZ's official statistics show core group rebates went to 5.52 million households in Great Britain in 2025/26, around 2.3 million more than the year before, a 71% increase. For winter 2026 to 2027 the new 2026 Regulations keep the wider test and merge the old Core Group 1 (Pension Credit Guarantee Credit) and Core Group 2 into a single core group. Tax credits dropped out of the list in 2025, when they ended, and the 2026 to 2027 statement names four benefits, shown in the table below.

For most people, yes. You do not apply in England and Wales. The government takes DWP's records of who was getting a qualifying benefit on the qualifying date and matches them against participating suppliers' customer records, then tells each supplier which customers to credit. The qualifying date is set as close as possible to the date of the data match, to keep changes in people's circumstances to a minimum, which is why it moves each year: 24 August 2025 last winter, 23 August 2026 this winter. If you are matched, the government sends you a letter confirming that your supplier will apply the discount and that you do not have to do anything. If the data shows you were on a qualifying benefit but DESNZ could not match you to a participating supplier, the letter asks you to call the Warm Home Discount helpline to give the missing information. Have the reference number from the letter, your electricity account number and your meter point administration number (MPAN, printed on your bill) ready, because those are what the helpline asks for. Ofgem lists the helpline as 0800 030 9322, the number that took enquiries last winter from 27 October 2025 to 31 March 2026. Use the number printed on your own letter. The gov.uk online eligibility checker is closed at the moment, and gov.uk says the scheme reopens in October 2026.

A prepayment or pay-as-you-go meter does not stop you qualifying. The regulations let a supplier give a prepayment customer £150 of credit against future electricity use, and gov.uk says your supplier will tell you how you will get it, for example a voucher to top up your meter. If you prepay for gas and get both fuels from one supplier, you can ask for the credit on your gas instead. The name on the bill matters more. The person getting the benefit, their partner as recorded by DWP, or their legal representative must be the account holder or be named on the electricity bill on the qualifying date. If the electricity account is in a landlord's name, or in the name of someone in the household who is not your partner, you do not meet that condition. Some homes are outside the main scheme altogether: people living permanently in a care home, most caravans, and park home residents who pay the site owner for their electricity. Park home residents can apply to the separate Park Homes Warm Home Discount, run by Charis Grants, which for 2026/27 accepts Universal Credit claimants with income below £1,758 in at least one assessment period. Its funding is limited, and it closes when the money runs out. If a caravan is your sole legal home and you are named on the electricity bill, you will not be sent a letter, so call the helpline with evidence. If your supplier stops trading, Ofgem appoints a new one and you may still be eligible.

Start with your electricity supplier. Ofgem says questions about eligibility and payments are best directed there, and gov.uk tells anyone who had confirmation they were eligible but was not paid by 31 March to contact the supplier first. Confirmation means a letter from the Warm Home Discount Scheme saying you were eligible, being told so by the helpline, or, for Scotland's application-based Broader Group, being told so by your supplier when you applied. If the supplier cannot help, write to Warm Home Discount Scheme, PO Box 970, Preston PR2 0FX, with your name, address and date of birth, the reference number from your letter, your supplier's name and your account number, and the name of whoever was on the bill on the qualifying date if it was not you. If you never got a letter but think you met the test on 23 August 2026, check that the account was in your name or your partner's, then call the helpline. The 2026 Regulations also add a safety net in regulation 12. If DESNZ is satisfied that you met the conditions but missed the rebate because of an administrative error by a supplier, by DESNZ or by Ofgem, it must issue a late rebate notice in the following scheme year, and the supplier then has 30 days to pay you.

Scotland has its own regulations, the Warm Home Discount (Scotland) Regulations 2026, in force from 1 May 2026, and the rules for Universal Credit are narrower. The discount is still £150 and the qualifying date for winter 2026 to 2027 is still 23 August 2026, but only some claimants are in the automatic core group. Under Schedule 1, paragraph 3, a person on Universal Credit is in the core group if their award includes the disabled child addition (Condition A), or if they are not in employment or gainful self-employment and are either responsible for a child under 5 who normally lives with them or have limited capability for work, or for work and work-related activity (Condition B). Pension Credit claimants are always in the core group. Everyone else on Universal Credit in Scotland has to apply to their own electricity supplier under the Broader Group. Each supplier sets its own criteria, approved by Ofgem, and Ofgem says Universal Credit must be among them. But regulation 25(2) means a supplier only has to pay up to its target number of Broader Group rebates, not every customer who meets its criteria, so a Broader Group rebate is not guaranteed. Ofgem notes that the Scottish core group is aligned with the benefits used for Scotland's Winter Heating Payment, which our Cold Weather Payment and Universal Credit guide covers. For an emergency with energy costs, the Scottish Welfare Fund is a separate source of help.

No. The Warm Home Discount covers England, Scotland and Wales only. Gov.uk says plainly that the scheme is not available in Northern Ireland, and Ofgem, which administers the industry initiatives part of the scheme, says the same. Both point Northern Ireland households to the Affordable Warmth scheme instead, and gov.uk links to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive's page for it. It is a separate scheme with its own rules, which this guide does not cover. Northern Ireland does have its own Cold Weather Payment, paying £25 for each seven-day period of very cold weather between 1 November 2026 and 31 March 2027, with Universal Credit conditions that match the ones in England and Wales. Our Cold Weather Payment guide sets out the schemes in each nation side by side, and the Universal Credit in Northern Ireland guide covers how the benefit itself works there.

No. The £150 is a credit on your electricity account, not a payment to you, so there is nothing for DWP to count. Universal Credit only takes account of earnings and of the types of unearned income listed in regulation 66 of the Universal Credit Regulations 2013, such as certain other benefits, pensions and maintenance, and an energy bill rebate is not on that list. Gov.uk also confirms that the discount does not affect a Cold Weather Payment or a Winter Fuel Payment, so you can get more than one kind of winter help in the same year if you qualify for each. They work differently, though. The Cold Weather Payment pays £25 into your bank account for each very cold week, but only to some Universal Credit claimants, while in England a council Crisis Payment from the Crisis and Resilience Fund can help with energy costs in an emergency and does not affect your Universal Credit either. To see how the rest of your award is worked out, run your household through the Universal Credit calculator.