Heat Pump Grants Wales 2026

Heat Pump Grants in Wales: More Options Than You Might Realise

Welsh homeowners actually have a stronger set of options than most people in England when it comes to heat pump funding. You've got access to the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (which covers England and Wales), plus Wales-specific schemes on top. Here's how it all fits together.

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS): £7,500 for Any Welsh Homeowner

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme applies across England and Wales, and it gives you a £7,500 grant towards an air source heat pump. This is paid directly to your installer, who deducts it from your bill. You never see the money change hands, you just pay less.

To qualify for BUS:

• You own the property (or are a registered social landlord in some cases)
• You're replacing a fossil fuel heating system (gas, oil, LPG or electric)
• The installer must be MCS-certified
• You can only use BUS once per property

You do not need an EPC, and you do not need to clear outstanding insulation recommendations first. Both conditions have gone: the insulation rule in May 2024 and the EPC rule on 28 April 2026. gov.uk now says explicitly that you are still eligible if you have already had funding to insulate the property. Insulating first is still a good idea, and may be free through ECO4 or Nest (more on those below), but it is no longer a condition of the grant.

Two details worth having. If your home is heated by oil or LPG and has no mains gas connection, there's an extra £1,500 on top of the £7,500 until March 2027, which is a real consideration in rural Wales. On timing, Ofgem won't accept an application for a heat pump commissioned more than 120 days earlier, and once a voucher is issued it expires three months later for an air source unit. Applying before the work starts is the safe route. That's a deadline on the installer, not on you, but it's you who loses the money, so get it written into the contract.

Nest: Wales's Own Low-Income Route

This is where Wales really stands out. Nest is the Welsh Government's home energy scheme, and gov.wales lists heat pumps among the free improvements it can fund, alongside insulation and solar panels. For qualifying households the work is free. No grant to top up, no loan.

Nest Eligibility: All Three Gates, Not Any One of Them

Most pages list the Nest criteria as a pick-and-mix. They aren't. gov.wales sets out three tests and you need to pass all three:

• Tenure: you own or privately rent your home. Local authority and housing association tenants aren't eligible. If you own it you'll need a mortgage statement, buildings insurance policy or the deeds as evidence; if you rent, they'll need your landlord's details to ask permission.
• Income: either you receive a qualifying means-tested benefit (Universal Credit, Pension Credit, income-related Council Tax Reduction, or Child Tax Credit with individual income under £18,660), or your household is below the low-income threshold. Those thresholds depend on the size and age of the household and are measured after mortgage or rent payments, which is more generous than it first sounds. A single adult with no children is £15,521 a year, a couple with no children £23,166, a couple with two children aged 14 or over £38,456. Disability-related payments and benefits don't count as income.
• EPC: your home needs a rating of 54 (E) or less. That relaxes to 68 (D) or less if someone in the household has an eligible chronic health condition, which covers respiratory disease, circulatory disease, mental health conditions including depression and anxiety, dementia, and intellectual and developmental disorders. You'll need evidence such as a prescription, treatment plan or referral letter. A D-rated home with nobody holding an eligible condition goes on a reserve list rather than being turned away outright.

Nest doesn't just cover heat pumps. It looks at your whole home and funds a package of measures. A heat pump might be one part of that package, and if your property is without heating or hot water entirely, a boiler or storage heater repair or replacement may come first.

To find out if you qualify, call 0808 808 2244. It's free, and worth ringing even if you think you fall outside the rules, because they'll also check your benefit entitlement and point you at the other Welsh schemes.

Green Homes Wales: the Route for Everyone Else

This is the one almost nobody mentions, and it's the answer to "I'm above the Nest thresholds, so what do I get?"

Green Homes Wales is a Welsh Government initiative managed by the Development Bank of Wales, and it is explicitly not means tested. What it offers:

• A fully funded Retrofit Coordinator assessment of your home, producing tailored recommendations
• Interest-free loans from £1,000 to £25,000, over terms up to 10 years, with a 6-month repayment holiday at the start
• Grant funding alongside the loan for specific measures. The scheme page doesn't publish the per-measure amounts, so ask when you register rather than budgeting on a number you read somewhere

Air source and ground source heat pumps are both on the eligible project list, along with solar PV, battery storage, solid wall and loft insulation, glazing and heating controls. The catches: you must own the home and live in it, it must be in Wales, it can't be a new build (built in the last six months and never occupied) and it can't be listed. Landlords can't apply. Everything is subject to affordability and credit checks, and the work has to be PAS 2035 compliant, which is a quality requirement rather than an obstacle.

The route in is to ring Nest first for free advice, then register your interest with the Development Bank of Wales. Between the £7,500 Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant and a £25,000 interest-free loan, a middle-income Welsh homeowner is in a better position than an equivalent household in England.

ECO4: The Energy Company Obligation

ECO4 is a Great Britain-wide scheme (England, Scotland and Wales, it doesn't cover Northern Ireland) where energy companies fund upgrades for low-income and vulnerable households. It can fund heat pumps as part of a broader package of measures. Your energy supplier or a registered ECO4 installer can check your eligibility, or you can use the government's ECO4 eligibility checker online.

ECO4 and Nest sometimes overlap. A Nest adviser will tell you which scheme is the right route for your situation.

Comparing Your Options as a Welsh Homeowner

Can You Combine Schemes?

In some cases, yes. If you're a homeowner on a middle income who doesn't qualify for Nest, you'd use the Boiler Upgrade Scheme. If you do qualify for Nest or ECO4, those schemes may cover more of the cost than BUS does. It's worth checking Nest first before you apply for BUS.

You can't typically stack BUS on top of a fully-funded Nest installation, but a Nest adviser will walk you through the best combination for your situation.

What Does a Heat Pump Actually Cost in Wales?

An air source heat pump installed in Wales typically costs £8,000–£14,000 depending on your home size and the complexity of installation. With £7,500 off through BUS, you're looking at £500–£6,500 out of pocket, and less again if you're on oil or LPG off the gas grid and pick up the extra £1,500. If you qualify for Nest or ECO4, that could drop to zero. If you don't, Green Homes Wales can lend you the balance at 0% rather than you putting it on a credit card.

Running costs depend heavily on your tariff and how well-insulated your home is, but most households switching from oil or electric storage heaters see meaningful savings on their annual bills.