Tricity Labs

Boiler Upgrade Grants: A Complete Guide to Eligibility, Applications and Housing-Sector Use

By Tricity Labs, Technical Team — Independent retrofit measurement & verification, working to BS 40101 principles

Boiler Upgrade Grants (formally the Boiler Upgrade Scheme) offer eligible households in England and Wales up to £7,500 towards an air source or ground source heat pump, or £5,000 towards a biomass boiler, to replace fossil fuel or electric heating. The grant is installer-led, requires a valid EPC, and excludes new-build homes and social housing, which is an important distinction for housing providers planning wider decarbonisation work.

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Three things to know:

Key Takeaways

Point Detail
Grant values are fixed, not means-tested Air source and ground source heat pumps attract up to £7,500 off the cost and installation; biomass boilers attract up to £5,000. The amount is the same regardless of household income, but it only covers part of the total installed cost.
The property, not the person, must qualify Eligibility sits with the building: it must be a home or small/medium non-domestic property in England or Wales, hold a valid EPC, and sit within maximum installation capacity limits (45kWth, or 300kWth for shared ground loop systems).
Biomass boilers have extra restrictions Biomass is only eligible where a property is both in a rural location and not connected to the gas grid. Air source and ground source heat pumps carry no such restriction.
Social housing and new-builds are excluded New-build homes and social housing are not eligible for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, although self-build properties are. This is a critical detail for any Boiler Upgrade Grants guide aimed at housing providers, since it redirects social landlords toward other decarbonisation funding routes.
Applications are installer-led You cannot apply for the grant directly. An MCS-certified installer applies to Ofgem on the property owner's behalf, discounts the grant value from the invoice, and manages most of the process.
Timing matters A system commissioned more than 120 days before the voucher application is submitted will not be eligible, so paperwork needs to keep pace with installation, not follow it at leisure.

Table of Contents

What the Boiler Upgrade Scheme Actually Covers

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme, commonly referred to as Boiler Upgrade Grants, is a UK government capital grant designed to reduce the upfront cost of moving from fossil fuel heating to low carbon heating systems. It runs in England and Wales, opened in May 2022, and is currently scheduled to close at the end of December 2029, giving property owners and housing providers a reasonably long runway to plan installations rather than rush them.

The grant applies to three technologies: air source heat pumps and ground source heat pumps, both worth up to £7,500, and biomass boilers, worth up to £5,000 in more limited circumstances. It is explicitly aimed at replacing an existing fossil fuel system, such as an oil or gas boiler, or an existing electric heating system like storage or panel heaters.

It is worth being precise about what the scheme is not. It is not a subsidy for adding a low carbon system alongside an existing fossil fuel one, and it is not available to top up or replace a low carbon system that is already installed. The intent, as stated by government, is to increase deployment of low carbon heating and support the wider industry in bringing down heat pump costs over time.

Who Counts as an Eligible Household

Eligibility is attached to the property rather than to income or personal circumstance, which is a common point of confusion. To qualify, the building must be a home or a small or medium non-domestic building in England or Wales, and it must have a valid Energy Performance Certificate at the time of application.

There are capacity limits built into the eligibility rules: the maximum installation capacity is 45kWth, which covers the overwhelming majority of domestic and small commercial properties, and any shared ground loop system must not exceed 300kWth in total. Property owners also cannot combine the Boiler Upgrade Grant with any other public funding source for a heat pump or biomass boiler, and cannot apply if they have already received government support for one.

Importantly, separate funding for energy efficiency measures such as insulation, doors or windows does not disqualify an application, so a fabric-first retrofit and a heat pump grant can sit alongside each other. New-build homes and social housing are excluded outright, though self-build properties remain eligible, which is a distinction that trips up a fair number of applicants who assume any newly constructed home would qualify.

Check your EPC's expiry date before starting any application. An expired or missing EPC is one of the most common reasons an otherwise straightforward application stalls, and refreshing it can take longer than expected if an assessor needs to be booked.

Air Source Heat Pumps and Other Low Carbon Heating Systems

Air source heat pumps are the most commonly installed technology under this scheme, largely because they don't require the ground works that ground source systems need, and they carry no rural or off-gas-grid restriction. Ground source heat pumps attract the same £7,500 grant value but are more site-dependent, since they rely on either boreholes or a ground loop, and shared loop systems have their own capacity ceiling.

Biomass boilers sit in a narrower category. They're only eligible where a property is both in a rural location and not connected to the gas grid, reflecting the fact that biomass is generally considered a fallback option for off-grid properties rather than a first-choice low carbon heating system in areas with easier access to electricity-based alternatives.

For any household or housing provider comparing options, the underlying principle is the same across all three technologies: the system must fully replace the existing fossil fuel or electric heating setup, not supplement it. Partial replacements, hybrid systems that retain a fossil fuel boiler as backup in most configurations, or top-up installations generally fall outside scope.

A Practical Boiler Upgrade Grants Guide to the Application Process

The application process is deliberately installer-led rather than something a homeowner or landlord manages directly. Your chosen installer needs to be certified by the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS), which is the nationally recognised standards body confirming both the quality of the equipment and the competence of the installer.

Once you've agreed a quote, the installer discounts the grant value from your invoice upfront, then applies to Ofgem, which administers the scheme, for a grant voucher. Ofgem will contact you directly by email to confirm your consent for the installer to act on your behalf, so it's worth watching for that message rather than assuming the installer's word is sufficient on its own.

From there, the installer largely manages the relationship with Ofgem, completes the installation to industry standards, and redeems the voucher after commissioning. The one date-sensitive detail worth flagging in any Boiler Upgrade Grants guide is the 120-day rule: if a system is commissioned more than 120 days before the voucher application is submitted, the application becomes ineligible, so the paperwork and the physical work need to move in step.

Ask your installer for their MCS certification number and confirm it directly on the MCS register before committing to a quote. It costs nothing to check, and it protects you from installers who claim certification but are not currently listed.

A Boiler Upgrade Grants Checklist Before You Apply

Before approaching an installer, it helps to work through a short checklist rather than discovering gaps midway through the process. Confirm the property has a valid EPC; confirm the existing heating system is a genuine fossil fuel or electric system being fully replaced, not a partial upgrade; and confirm no prior government funding has been received for a heat pump or biomass boiler at that address.

Next, check the practical fit of the technology. For heat pumps, confirm the site can accommodate the unit and that installation capacity stays within the 45kWth limit, or 300kWth for a shared ground loop. For biomass, confirm the property is genuinely rural and off the gas grid, since this is one of the more commonly misjudged eligibility points.

Finally, get the sequencing right: don't let a system be commissioned before the installer has submitted, or is ready to submit, the voucher application, and keep documentation (EPC, MCS certificate, invoice showing the discount applied) in one place. This documentation trail matters as much for landlords managing several properties as it does for a single household, since it's the evidence that would need to be produced if a query arises later.

Boiler Upgrade Grants for Housing Associations and Landlords

Housing providers reading a Boiler Upgrade Grants guide for the first time often expect the scheme to apply directly to their stock. It generally doesn't: social housing is explicitly excluded from the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, which means most registered providers need to look toward other decarbonisation funding routes, such as the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, for the bulk of their retrofit programme.

Where the Boiler Upgrade Scheme does become relevant to housing organisations is at the margins: leasehold properties, shared ownership homes, or self-build units within a mixed-tenure scheme can potentially qualify in their own right, and understanding which units in a portfolio fall into which category is not always straightforward. This is where evidence quality starts to matter more than eligibility rules alone.

For organisations managing hundreds or thousands of homes, the practical challenge isn't reading the eligibility criteria once, it's applying them consistently across a stock list that changes, mixed tenure types, and multiple funding streams running in parallel. A one-off checklist works for a single household; a housing association needs something closer to a system of record.

How to Evaluate Boiler Upgrade Grants: Best Practices for Larger Portfolios

When a landlord or asset manager is trying to work out how to evaluate Boiler Upgrade Grants opportunities across dozens or hundreds of properties, the temptation is to treat it as a desk exercise built on assumptions about EPC ratings and heating type. In practice, EPC data is often out of date, heating systems get swapped without records being updated, and gas grid connection status isn't always recorded accurately at property level.

Best practice starts with verifying the underlying data before modelling grant eligibility on top of it: confirm current heating type property by property, confirm EPC validity rather than assuming it, and flag any property that has already received public heat pump or biomass funding so it isn't mistakenly resubmitted. Layering funding sources incorrectly is one of the more time-consuming mistakes to unwind after the fact, since it can trigger repayment obligations.

The second half of good practice is about sequencing and documentation across a programme rather than a single job: tracking which properties have installers already engaged, which are within the 120-day commissioning window, and which have complete paperwork ready for audit. At scale, this is less about knowing the rules and more about having a reliable, current picture of stock condition to apply them to.

Treat EPC and heating-system data as perishable, not fixed. Re-verify a sample of records against site visits or contractor reports at least annually; stale stock data is one of the most common causes of failed or delayed grant applications at portfolio scale.

Where Independent Evidence Fits Into Grant Decisions

None of Tricity Labs' tools apply for a Boiler Upgrade Grant on anyone's behalf, and we're not an installer or a scheme administrator. What we do is help housing associations, asset managers and contractors build the underlying evidence base that makes eligibility checking and funding decisions faster and more defensible, whether the funding route is the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund, or a mix of both.

Verity and Detect are built to surface and verify current stock condition data, including heating system type and fabric performance, so that assumptions about a property's eligibility are based on evidence rather than an outdated EPC. Evidence and Verify then support the documentation trail that a funding application or an internal audit would need, which matters given how much of the Boiler Upgrade Scheme's process depends on accurate, well-timed paperwork.

For organisations managing decarbonisation across a whole portfolio, Benchmark and our Stock Performance Index help compare readiness and performance across properties, so decisions about where to prioritise low carbon heating investment are grounded in comparable, up-to-date data rather than guesswork. If you're weighing Boiler Upgrade Grants best practices against a wider retrofit strategy, our platform is built to sit underneath that decision, not replace it.

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Related reading: Boiler Upgrade Grants for housing associations, how tenants are affected by heating upgrades, working with contractors on MCS-certified installs, retrofit evidence and documentation, our platform for stock condition data, more about Tricity Labs

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About Tricity Labs

The team behind Tricity Labs' Verity platform, delivering independent pre- and post-retrofit measurement and verification from existing smart meter data for housing associations and retrofit contractors.