Do you qualify for help with insulation or heating? Find out in a minute.
15 schemes across the four nations, 10 of them open. Answer as much as you want and this tells you which ones you are in, which you are out of, and exactly which condition stops you. That last part is the whole point: a no is only useful if you know what would turn it into a yes.
The thing nobody has told you
The Great British Insulation Scheme closed on 31 March 2026 and was not extended. It was the only one that did not need a benefit, using your council tax band instead, so its closing took away the one route in for a lot of households on ordinary incomes.
ECO4 ends on 31 December 2026. It was extended by nine months, but not one supplier's target was raised. The government said the extension was solely to let suppliers finish what they had already promised and let installers put right work that was done badly.
And nothing replaces it. There will be no successor to ECO4. The government confirmed it twice, in January and February 2026, following the Budget. There is no ECO5 and nobody is designing one. Help is moving from schemes paid for through your energy bill to grants paid for out of taxation, and those are smaller, run council by council, and in England and Wales are not open to everybody ECO4 was.
So if you are eligible for ECO4, the honest advice is to move now rather than in the spring, and to expect some suppliers to say they are full.
Check what you qualify for
Nothing you tap here leaves your browser. There is no form on this page and nothing is recorded, because there is nowhere for it to go and no reason to.
Be careful, and here is exactly what to be careful of
This is the most heavily mis-sold corner of the whole energy market, and it is worth a few minutes before you agree to anything.
Every genuine route on this page starts with you. You ring the scheme, your council, or a supplier. No government scheme rings you, texts you or knocks on your door to sign you up. Private installers do lawfully market that way, so a caller is not automatically a criminal, but the claim that they are calling for a government scheme, or that you have been selected or approved, is always false.
ECO4 can involve a contribution, but it is a written figure in a contract you have had time to read, never cash or a card on the day. Northern Ireland's Affordable Warmth Scheme says in terms that you must not start work until written approval arrives. And where insulation fitted under a government scheme turns out to be faulty, putting it right is free.
The government found poor installation and building regulation failures in solid wall insulation fitted under ECO4 and the Great British Insulation Scheme, which can cause damp and mould. Thirty nine businesses were suspended and every installation under those schemes is being checked. If yours is one, the fix costs you nothing.
Check a firm, and what its accreditation really means →
Before you agree to anything
- Check the business yourself, on a register, using a link you found. Insulation and most other measures: TrustMark, at trustmark.org.uk. Heat pumps and solar: MCS, at mcscertified.com. Check the technology as well as the company, because MCS certification is specific to what they are certified for. If they are not on the register they are not delivering a government scheme.
- Know what registration does and does not mean. TrustMark means the business was vetted against a code of conduct and is inspected at least once every three years. It is not a government guarantee of the work, it is not insurance, and it cannot help you if the business has stopped trading. That is why the separate guarantee named on your paperwork matters as much as the logo.
- Get it in writing, get more than one quote, and never pay a deposit on the doorstep. A consumer body found one company holding close to a million pounds of customers' deposits for work it had not done when it went into liquidation. Pay by credit card where you can.
- If you have already signed, you probably have fourteen days. Contracts agreed at your home, or over the phone or online, carry a fourteen day right to cancel. And if the trader never gave you written notice of that right, the period extends, by up to twelve months. Cancel in writing, keep a dated copy.
- Report it as well as cancelling. England and Wales: Citizens Advice consumer helpline 0808 223 1133, and Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040. Scotland: Advice Direct Scotland 0808 164 6000, and Police Scotland on 101. Northern Ireland: Consumerline 0300 123 6262, and Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040. Ring 999 if somebody is at your door and will not leave.
Two things to know about spray foam
Spray foam insulation is sold hard, and it can make a house difficult to mortgage. But there is a second wave of the same scam: firms cold calling people who already have it, saying it must urgently be removed, or that they can claim compensation for it. A trader who says either of those things without you having asked is a warning sign in both directions.
And a note on who is actually responsible
Ofgem is explicit that it does not regulate the insulation industry. Its job is setting each supplier's target and checking they meet it. Responsibility for the quality of the work is split between Ofgem, TrustMark, certification bodies and guarantee providers, which is why there is no single number to ring when something goes wrong, and why the paperwork naming your guarantee provider is the most valuable document you will be given. Keep it.
If work already done is defective and the installer is TrustMark registered, go to the installer first, then the guarantee provider named on your paperwork, then TrustMark's own complaints process, which ends at the Dispute Resolution Ombudsman after twelve weeks. For the solid wall insulation checks specifically Ofgem runs a helpline on 0808 169 4447. Anyone contacting you about those checks should be able to quote your unique measure reference. If they cannot, they are not who they say they are.
Every scheme, and whether it is open
Including the closed ones, because half the pages on the internet still list them and a household chasing a scheme that ended two years ago is worse off than one told plainly that it has gone.
Scroll sideways to see every column
| Scheme | Where | Status | In short |
|---|---|---|---|
| Council area based schemes in Scotland | Scotland | open | Running, but only in the streets your own council has chosen. |
| ECO4, the Energy Company Obligation | England, Wales, Scotland | open | Open, but it ends on 31 December 2026 and nothing replaces it. |
| Green Homes Wales | Wales | open | Open, and it is a loan rather than a grant. |
| The Affordable Warmth Scheme | Northern Ireland | open | Open, and it is the main Northern Ireland route. |
| The Boiler Upgrade Scheme | England, Wales | open | Open, funded to 2030, and it is the one grant here that does not test your income. |
| The Home Energy Scotland grant and loan | Scotland | open | Open, and this is the one that does not need a benefit at all. |
| The Northern Ireland Sustainable Energy Programme | Northern Ireland | open | Open, first come first served, and it often reaches people Affordable Warmth does not. |
| Warm Homes Nest | Wales | open | Open, free, and the main Welsh route. |
| Warm Homes: Local Grant | England | open | Open, and with ECO4 ending this is the main route left in England. |
| Warmer Homes Scotland | Scotland | open | Open, and the Scottish Government usually meets the whole cost. |
| Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund | England | landlord only | Nothing for a tenant to apply for, now or ever. |
| The Warm Healthy Homes Fund | Northern Ireland | not open yet | Not open. Due in April 2027, and its rules are not settled. |
| The Warm Homes Fund loans | England, Wales, Scotland | not open yet | Announced and funded, but with no rules, no route and no opening date. |
| The Great British Insulation Scheme | England, Wales, Scotland | closed | Closed on 31 March 2026. It was not extended and nothing replaced it. |
| The Northern Ireland Boiler Replacement Scheme | Northern Ireland | closed | Closed in September 2023 on budget grounds. |
Where this comes from, and where it could be wrong
Every rule here was read from the scheme operator's own published guidance, and each scheme names the pages it was read from. Nothing you enter into the checker leaves your browser, because there is nowhere for it to go.
Several of these are cash limited and close early. Councils get one allocation for three years and shut their lists when it is committed. Meeting every published condition is not the same as getting an offer, and no scheme publishes how much is left.
This is a reference, not an application and not advice. Only the body running a scheme can decide your case, and several of these schemes run out of money before they run out of time. We take nothing from anybody, we pass on no details, and there is no installer on this site.
Three ways this page could mislead you
A yes here is not an offer. It means nothing we can test rules you out. Every one of these schemes then does its own assessment, and several have survey stages that can end in a no for reasons no checker could know, such as whether the house can physically reach the target rating.
The energy rating question decides more than anything else, and a lot of people guess it. It is free to look up on the government register and it takes a minute. If you guessed, treat your answer here as provisional.
Council schemes are not one scheme. ECO4 Flex in Great Britain, area based schemes in Scotland and the Warm Homes: Local Grant in England all depend on what your own council is doing. We can tell you the national rules. Only your council can tell you whether it is running anything.
What we could not stand up
Left out rather than filled in.
ECO4, the Energy Company Obligation2 points we could not stand up
- The number of the order that extended ECO4 to 31 December 2026. The extension itself is confirmed by the government response, by Ofgem and by three parliamentary debates, but we could not read the instrument at source because the legislation site refused every request.
- Whether any given supplier is still taking new people on. Targets were not raised for the extension, so this is a commercial decision each supplier makes, and none of them publishes it.
Ofgem, the Energy Company Obligation · Ofgem, questions from householders and landlords · Government response, extending the ECO4 end date · Ofgem, ECO4 local authority guidance version 3.0
The Great British Insulation Scheme1 point we could not stand up
- Ofgem's own page for this scheme still described it as running when we read it in August 2026, with no closure notice on it. We have treated that as a page nobody updated rather than as evidence the scheme is open, because the government, the Warm Homes Plan and Ofgem's own guidance for councils all say it closed.
Government, the scheme's own closure notice · The Warm Homes Plan
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme2 points we could not stand up
- The scheme has no published closing date. It is funded to 2030 and Ofgem says it has been extended to 2030, but no primary source gives a final day. The 31 March 2027 date on the government's own pages belongs to the £9,000 uplift and to the zero rate of VAT on energy saving materials, not to the scheme.
- Two of our readers disagreed on whether an energy certificate is still needed. Ofgem's own installer guidance version 5 settles it, in terms: from 28 April 2026 a property no longer needs a valid certificate to apply. We have followed that and recorded the disagreement here rather than hiding it.
Government, apply for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme · The approved grant values, updated 21 July 2026 · Ofgem, guidance for installers version 5
Warm Homes: Local Grant2 points we could not stand up
- Councils are given a fixed allocation for the whole three years and close their lists when it is committed, so meeting every published condition does not guarantee an offer. By the end of July 2026 about 11,250 measures had been done in about 5,470 homes.
- You will see £16,600 quoted, sometimes doubled to £33,200. Those are average cost caps a council's whole project has to meet, not an amount any household is entitled to, and we will not print them as if they were.
Government, apply for the Warm Homes: Local Grant · The policy guidance · The scheme's own statistics, August 2026
Warmer Homes Scotland2 points we could not stand up
- Whether the £10,000 or more figure is a floor, an average or a typical package. It is not described as a maximum and we are not going to present it as one.
- Which criteria were widened in July 2025. The announcement says they were, but does not say which.
Home Energy Scotland, Warmer Homes Scotland · mygov.scot, Warmer Homes Scotland
The Home Energy Scotland grant and loan2 points we could not stand up
- The overall cap is published two different ways. mygov.scot says up to £15,000 as a grant. Home Energy Scotland says rural households can claim up to £18,000. The terms and conditions give a combined maximum of £15,000, or £16,500 rural, counting grant and loan together. Confirm your own figure with them before you plan around it.
- Whether the interest free loan survives the 2026 to 2027 budget. Every page we read in August 2026 still describes it, and we have taken that at face value.
Home Energy Scotland, grants and loans · mygov.scot, help with heating costs
Council area based schemes in Scotland1 point we could not stand up
- Which councils have live projects in August 2026, and their local rules. There is no central list and we are not going to guess at 32 different sets of criteria.
Warm Homes Nest3 points we could not stand up
- Whether there is a cost cap on a Nest package. None is published.
- The cash figure that 60 per cent of the median works out at for 2026 to 2027.
- Several Welsh Government pages refused every automated request, so some of the detail here comes from the scheme's own site rather than from the government's.
Nest, the scheme itself · Welsh Government, the Warm Homes Nest scheme
Green Homes Wales2 points we could not stand up
- Whether there is any minimum property standard or energy rating threshold. We could not find one.
- Whether it is taking new registrations without a waiting list in August 2026.
The Affordable Warmth Scheme2 points we could not stand up
- Whether a household is ever asked to pay anything above the £7,500 or £10,000 caps, and on what terms.
- How long applications are currently taking.
Housing Executive, the Affordable Warmth Scheme · Department for Communities, fuel poverty
The Northern Ireland Sustainable Energy Programme1 point we could not stand up
- A single income threshold, because there is not one. The Housing Executive quotes under £38,000 as indicative. The regulator's own list shows thresholds varying by scheme and household. Check the scheme.
Utility Regulator, this year's list of schemes · nidirect, energy saving grants in your area
The Warm Healthy Homes Fund2 points we could not stand up
- The eligibility rules, the income threshold and the grant limits, none of which exist yet.
- Whether April 2027 will hold.
The Warm Homes Fund loans1 point we could not stand up
- Everything about it that a household would need: when it opens, who can use it and on what terms.
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