Heating With Oil or LPG? The Boiler Upgrade Scheme Pays £9,000, Not £7,500 — Until March 2027
Most coverage of the Boiler Upgrade Scheme quotes a flat £7,500. For one group of households it is £9,000 — and unlike the scheme itself, the extra £1,500 has a deadline in March 2027.
By Energy Pages
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is usually described as a flat £7,500 towards a heat pump. For most households that is right. For households heated by oil or LPG with no mains gas connection, it is wrong by £1,500 — and that £1,500 expires well before the scheme does.
The wording on GOV.UK is precise about who qualifies:
Until March 2027, you can get an additional £1,500 towards an air source heat pump or ground source heat pump if both:
- your property is heated by oil or LPG
- you do not have a mains gas connection at the property
Both conditions have to be true. A property on mains gas that happens to use an LPG bottle for a hob does not qualify; neither does an off-grid property already heated by electricity. It applies to both air source and ground source systems, which matters because ground source is more common in exactly this kind of rural property.
Why this group, and why now
The uplift is not arbitrary. Off-gas-grid homes are the hardest and most expensive to decarbonise, and they are also the ones where a heat pump makes the most straightforward financial sense — because the alternative is oil or LPG rather than mains gas.
There is a regulatory asymmetry underneath that which rarely gets stated plainly. The Ofgem price cap covers domestic gas and electricity. It does not cover heating oil or LPG, which are bought on the open market at whatever the delivery price is on the day. A household on oil carries a fuel-price exposure that a household on mains gas does not, and no cap sits between them and it.
That is the case for the uplift, and it is also the reason the deadline is worth taking seriously rather than filing away.
The deadline is on the uplift, not the scheme
These are two different dates and they are easy to conflate.
Applications to the Boiler Upgrade Scheme itself run until 31 December 2029, extended from 31 December 2027 by S.I. 2026/390. The additional £1,500 runs until March 2027. A household that qualifies today and installs in, say, mid-2027 would still get the £7,500 — and would have missed the extra £1,500 by a matter of months.
Heat pump installations are not quick. A survey, a heat-loss calculation, an MCS-certified installer’s schedule and, frequently, insulation work first can fill a good part of a year. Anyone in the qualifying group who is minded to do this at all should be getting quotes on a timescale that assumes the work takes longer than planned.
What the grant pays, in full
As things stand:
| Measure | Grant |
|---|---|
| Air source (air-to-water) heat pump | £7,500 |
| Ground source heat pump (including water source and shared ground loops) | £7,500 |
| Air-to-air heat pump (not claimable until installers are MCS-certified for it) | £2,500 |
| Biomass boiler | £5,000 |
| Additional, oil or LPG heated with no mains gas connection, until March 2027 (air-to-water or ground source only) | £1,500 |
So the maximum for a qualifying off-gas-grid property is £9,000 towards an air-to-water (air source) or ground source heat pump. An air-to-air heat pump gets £2,500, with no uplift. Correction, 30 September 2026: this line and the description said “air source” without saying air-to-water, which read as though an air-to-air system could take the £9,000. Ofgem’s property owner guidance limits it to “air-to-water or ground source heat pumps”. Correction, 26 October 2026: this article listed the £2,500 air-to-air grant as though it could be claimed now. It cannot yet: the scheme needs an MCS-certified installation, and MCS says no installer is yet certified to install air-to-air heat pumps.
The grant is claimed by the installer rather than the householder — it comes off the quoted price, and the installer must be MCS-certified. Correction, 18 September 2026: this article said the property would usually need a valid EPC with no outstanding recommendations for loft or cavity wall insulation, and named it the most common reason an application stalls. That requirement was removed on 28 April 2026 by S.I. 2026/390, before this article was published, so it was wrong when written. There is no EPC gate on the grant. Insulation still affects how well a heat pump performs and an installer will raise it, but it no longer stops an application.
What to confirm before assuming you qualify
Two things settle it, and neither requires a salesperson:
Your heating fuel and gas connection status. Both conditions must hold. If there is a live mains gas supply to the property, the uplift does not apply even if nothing is currently burning gas.
Correction, 16 October 2026: this list also told you to check your EPC for outstanding insulation recommendations, as “the most common reason an otherwise straightforward application stalls”. That is the requirement the 18 September correction above records as removed on 28 April 2026, and the advice should have gone with it.
The installer’s MCS certification. The grant cannot be claimed without it. It is a matter of public record and takes a minute to verify.
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme guide sets out the application route in full, and the heat pump guide covers what the technology does and does not suit — including older properties, which is where most off-gas-grid housing sits.
Figures verified against GOV.UK’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme guidance on 13 August 2026. Grant schemes change, sometimes without much notice — confirm the current position on GOV.UK before making a decision. Energy Pages is an independent information service, not a government body, a delivery agent or an installer.