Your Home Climate
Grants and eligibility

Boiler Upgrade Scheme eligibility, in plain English

Who can and cannot claim the £7,500 Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant in England and Wales, together with the small number of paperwork details that account for almost every rejected application.

Editorial confidence
High confidence. Multiple regulator, government or academic sources agree.
Last reviewed
1 June 2026 · next review 1 September 2026

Who this advice is for

Applies to

  • Owner-occupiers in England and Wales replacing a fossil-fuel heating system
  • Small private landlords with a property that needs a heating replacement
  • Self-builds where the home is being completed with a heat pump as the primary system

Not intended for

  • Households in Scotland; Home Energy Scotland operates a separate scheme
  • New-build homes commissioned by a developer for sale; the BUS does not cover those
  • Social housing or homes where another government-funded retrofit grant is already applied to the same measure

You may not need to read the rest of this page

You probably already have enough to act if:

  • You wanted to know whether your home qualifies before you book an MCS installer
  • You wanted the short list of paperwork items that get applications rejected
Open the heat-pump sizing planner

This is probably the wrong page for you if:

  • You live in Scotland; the equivalent grant is run by Home Energy Scotland
  • You are buying a brand-new home from a developer; the BUS does not apply

BUS grant for an air-source heat pump

£7,500

Source: Boiler Upgrade Scheme · Headline grant value applied as a discount on the installer's invoice; the homeowner does not handle the cash.

BUS grant for a ground-source heat pump

£7,500

Source: Boiler Upgrade Scheme · Equal in cash value to the air-source grant since the October 2023 uplift.

BUS grant for a biomass boiler

£5,000

Source: Boiler Upgrade Scheme · Restricted to rural off-gas-grid properties that meet the air-quality eligibility test.

What to do, and why first

01

Clear any outstanding EPC loft or cavity recommendations before applying

Why this comes first

The BUS does not require an EPC any longer, but installers will still ask whether straightforward fabric work has been done. Loft insulation below 100 mm or an empty fillable cavity is the most common cause of an MCS designer recommending a larger and more expensive unit than the home actually needs. Doing the easy fabric work first protects both the grant value and the running cost.

Evidence

DESNZ guidance for the BUS no longer requires loft and cavity recommendations to be cleared, but Energy Saving Trust modelling shows uninsulated lofts and empty cavities materially oversize the heat pump and the bill.

BUS · EST · ADL

Confidence

High confidence. Multiple independent sources agree on the direction and the order.

Exceptions
  • Listed buildings where the relevant fabric measures are not lawfully possible
Next step
Read the fabric-first order of operations
02

Get the quote from an MCS-certified installer; the grant is paid through them

Why this comes first

The BUS is administered by Ofgem but applied as a discount on the installer's invoice. Only MCS-certified installers can submit the application on the homeowner's behalf, and only installs that carry an MCS certificate at handover are paid. The homeowner does not apply themselves and does not receive any cash.

Evidence

Ofgem scheme administration documents and MCS installer rules confirm that the grant value is netted off the install price and reclaimed by the installer once the MCS certificate is issued.

Ofgem · MCS · BUS

Confidence

High confidence.

Exceptions

No common exceptions in UK homes.

Next step
How to choose an MCS installer
§01

Who actually qualifies

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is open to owner-occupiers and small private landlords in England and Wales who are replacing a fossil-fuel heating system in an existing property. Self-builds qualify when the heat pump is the primary heating system commissioned at first occupation. New-build homes commissioned by a developer for sale do not qualify, and neither do social housing or homes already receiving funding for the same measure from another government scheme.

Scotland and Northern Ireland sit outside the BUS. Home Energy Scotland runs the equivalent national grant for Scottish households, and the Northern Ireland Sustainable Energy Programme (NISEP) covers a narrower set of measures north of the border.

§02

The four reasons applications get rejected

First, the installer is not currently MCS-certified for the heat-pump technology being installed; the certification has to be live on the date the install is commissioned, not just on the date of the quote. Second, the property is a new-build sold by a developer rather than a genuine self-build. Third, the homeowner has already taken another government grant for the same measure within the eligibility window. Fourth, the MCS certificate is issued for a different address than the application or for a unit different in size or refrigerant from the one approved.

None of these are subtle. They are the four items a homeowner should confirm in writing with the installer before signing the contract.

§03

What the grant actually pays for

The grant is a discount on the installer's invoice, not a cash payment to the homeowner. It covers the supply and installation of an MCS-certified heat pump, the associated emitter changes that the MCS designer specifies, and the commissioning paperwork. It does not cover unrelated home improvements bundled into the quote, and any attempt to inflate the invoice to recover more grant is fraud the installer carries the liability for.

Typical out-of-pocket costs after the grant land between £3,000 and £7,000 for a competent 7 kW R290 install in a reasonably sized British semi.

Evidence behind this page

Every recommendation on this page is traceable to its source. Click a publication to read the original.

  • Government guidance

    Used because it sets the legal minimum standard for new work in the UK and defines the public funding rules homeowners can actually claim.

  • Professional bodies

    Used because these organisations publish independent consumer and technical guidance rather than product marketing.

  • Your Home Climate research

    Used only where no independent published source covers the question, and labelled clearly so readers can weight it accordingly.

    • Your Home Climate editorial

Real homes, public sources

The honesty layer
What we know
  • The grant value, the eligibility scope and the MCS administration route
  • The four reasons applications most commonly fail
What varies
  • Installer pricing once the grant is netted off the invoice
  • How quickly an installer can secure a commissioning slot in winter
What we don't know
  • Whether your specific property has any historical grant funding that would disqualify it; the installer will check on submission

The knowledge graph

Technologies
  • Air-source heat pump
  • Insulation
Problems it answers
  • Energy bills feel too high
  • Cold rooms in winter
Property types
  • Victorian terrace

Sourced from the Your Home Climate knowledge engine; every connection updates centrally.

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