The Warm Home Discount is a one-off £150 cut to your electricity bill, paid by your supplier between October and March to help with winter costs. It is not a benefit you save up for or a voucher you spend, it is a credit that lands on your account. The rules changed for the 2025 to 2026 winter so that far more households qualify, and most people who are eligible now get it automatically without filling in a single form. The tricky part is knowing whether you are one of them, because the scheme works slightly differently in Scotland than in England and Wales, and a small number of eligible people still slip through the cracks.
The short answer. The Warm Home Discount is a £150 rebate applied to the electricity bill of eligible low-income households over the winter. In England and Wales it is now automatic for almost everyone on a qualifying means-tested benefit, so there is usually nothing to apply for. In Scotland part of the scheme still needs an application to your supplier. Check the current rules and amount on the GOV.UK Warm Home Discount page, since the scheme is reviewed every year.
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What the Warm Home Discount actually is
The Warm Home Discount is a government scheme that has run since 2011. Energy suppliers above a certain size are required to take part, and they apply a fixed rebate to the electricity accounts of qualifying customers each winter. For the 2025 to 2026 scheme year the rebate is £150, paid once, usually as a credit added to your electricity account between October and the end of March.
A few things are worth being clear about from the start. The discount comes off your electricity bill, even if you heat with gas. If you have a single account that covers both fuels it still gets credited there. If you are on a prepayment meter you normally get it as a top-up voucher or a credit to your meter rather than a refund to a bank account. And it is a rebate, not a cash payment, so it reduces what you owe rather than arriving as money you can spend elsewhere.
The scheme is separate from the Winter Fuel Payment and from Cold Weather Payments. You can receive more than one of these in the same winter, and getting one does not affect whether you get another. They are run by different parts of government and have their own rules.
Who qualifies in England and Wales
England and Wales now split eligibility into two automatic groups, and the older system where you had to apply through a "Broader Group" has gone. There is no general application form any more.
Core Group 1 covers people who receive the Guarantee Credit part of Pension Credit and are named on the electricity bill. If that is you, the discount is applied automatically.
Core Group 2 covers working-age households on a qualifying means-tested benefit, such as Universal Credit, income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, the Savings Credit part of Pension Credit, Housing Benefit, Child Tax Credit or Working Tax Credit. The big change for 2025 to 2026 is that the old "high cost to heat" property test has been removed. Previously the government looked at the size and type of your home to decide whether it was expensive enough to heat to qualify you. That filter is gone, so now broadly anyone on a qualifying benefit who is named on the electricity bill should be eligible. The change is expected to bring the total to around 6 million households across Great Britain, roughly 2.7 million more than before.
Because both groups are automatic, the government matches benefit records against supplier records. Most eligible households are sent a letter, usually between October and December, confirming the rebate or asking them to phone a helpline to confirm a detail. If you get such a letter, act on it before the deadline printed on it, otherwise you can lose that year's payment.
Who qualifies in Scotland
Scotland keeps a two-part structure. Core Group 1 works the same way as in England and Wales: if you receive the Guarantee Credit part of Pension Credit and are named on the bill, the £150 is applied automatically.
The second part, often still called the Broader Group, is not automatic. If you are on a low income and on other qualifying benefits, you generally have to apply to your own electricity supplier when its scheme opens, usually in the autumn. Suppliers run these on a first-come basis and the funding is capped, so the schemes can close to new applications once the money for that year is committed. That means timing matters in Scotland in a way it does not south of the border. If you think you qualify, contact your supplier early rather than waiting until midwinter.
Whichever nation you are in, the qualifying date is a fixed day set by the government for that scheme year. You generally need to be receiving the relevant benefit and be named on the electricity account on that date. Moving supplier afterwards does not usually cost you the payment, because eligibility is locked to that snapshot.
What the £150 is worth against your bill
The rebate is a flat amount, so its real value depends on how much electricity you use. The table below shows what £150 covers at the current price cap unit rate, ignoring standing charges, which you pay regardless.
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Warm Home Discount rebate | £150 |
| Electricity unit rate | 26.32p per kWh |
| Units the rebate covers | about 575 kWh |
| Electricity standing charge | 54.83p per day |
| Days of standing charge it would cover | about 262 days |
| Typical share of a winter electricity bill | roughly a fifth to a quarter |
At 26.32p per kWh and a 54.83p per day standing charge, Ofgem cap October to December 2026. Checked June 2026.
Put another way, £150 is close to a month and a half of a typical home's electricity at this rate, or enough to cover the daily standing charge for most of the year. It will not clear a whole winter bill, but it lands at the point in the year when heating, lighting and tumble drying push usage to its peak. Pairing it with cheap measures from a winter energy checklist stretches it a good deal further.
What to do if you think you have been missed
Because the scheme is mostly automatic now, the failures tend to be administrative rather than about eligibility. A few situations catch people out:
- You are not named on the electricity bill. The rebate follows whoever is named on the account, not the household in general. If your partner gets the qualifying benefit but you are the bill payer, the records may not line up. Check whose name is on the account.
- You changed supplier and the new one does not take part. Almost all large suppliers must offer the scheme, but a few very small suppliers are exempt. If you switched to a tiny supplier you may have switched out of eligibility.
- The data match failed. Government and supplier records do not always agree on names, addresses or benefit status. If you believe you qualify but heard nothing by mid-winter, phone the Warm Home Discount helpline (the number is on GOV.UK) before the published deadline, which is typically late February.
- You are in Scotland and missed the application window. Apply as early as the scheme allows next time.
If you are struggling more broadly, your supplier has a duty to help and may have a hardship fund or payment plan. Our guide on what to do if you cannot afford your energy bill walks through the options, and the first step is always to contact your supplier rather than letting a debt build up quietly.
The bottom line
If you are on Pension Credit Guarantee Credit, or on a qualifying means-tested benefit in England or Wales, and you are named on the electricity bill, you almost certainly do not need to do anything. Watch for a letter in the autumn, act on it if it asks you to, and the £150 should appear on your account by the end of March. In Scotland, treat the Broader Group part as something you must apply for, and do it early before the funding runs out.
The rebate is genuinely useful, but it is one piece of a larger picture. Understanding how the rest of your bill is built, from unit rates to the standing charge you pay even on a zero-usage day, is what lets you judge whether you are also overpaying somewhere. Our guide to reading and understanding your energy bill is the natural next step, and if you are weighing a longer-term fix to heating costs, our explainer on how heat pumps work covers the technology the government is pushing households towards. Because the scheme is reviewed and re-funded every year, always confirm the current amount, qualifying date and rules on the official GOV.UK Warm Home Discount page before relying on any figure here.