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Boiler Upgrade Scheme rises to £9,000 for oil and LPG homes — what it means for you
The government has confirmed a £1,500 uplift to the Boiler Upgrade Scheme for households replacing oil or LPG heating with a heat pump, taking the grant from £7,500 to £9,000 in England and Wales. Applications are expected to open in July 2026. Here’s the detail — and the honest strategy advice.
- 7 min read
- Published 24 April 2026 · Updated July 2026
- By Phil · Heat Loss Hub
THE HEADLINES
Announced 21 April 2026: the Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant rises from £7,500 to £9,000 for homes in England and Wales replacing oil or LPG heating with an air source or ground source heat pump. The standard £7,500 grant continues for everyone else. Applications under the uplift are expected to open in July 2026; the scheme remains administered by Ofgem and claimed on your behalf by your MCS-certified installer.
What was announced
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) confirmed in April that off-gas-grid households — those heating with oil or LPG — will receive an extra £1,500 of Boiler Upgrade Scheme support when switching to a heat pump. It’s the first change to the headline grant level since it rose to £7,500, and it’s a targeted one: gas-heated homes stay at £7,500, and the uplift applies to air source and ground source heat pumps only (biomass boilers and air-to-air units remain outside this uplift’s scope).
Context worth knowing: the scheme has been underspending — industry reporting put the underspend around £65 million as of the end of March — so this is partly a push to get allocated money into the homes where it does the most good. The Heat Pump Association welcomed the change, noting the uplift will make the transition more affordable for exactly the households facing the highest fuel costs.
Who qualifies for the £9,000
- Property location: England and Wales (as with the wider BUS).
- Current heating: oil or LPG — the homes the uplift was designed for. Bulk tanks and bottled LPG both count.
- Replacement system: air source or ground source heat pump, installed and certified by an MCS-certified installer, who claims the grant on your behalf.
- Everyone else: the standard £7,500 continues for gas and other eligible replacements under the existing framework.
The familiar BUS machinery is unchanged: your installer handles the application, the voucher and the paperwork — including when that installer is one of the vetted network who build Heat Loss Hub designs.
Dates and transition rules
The uplift is expected to open for applications in July 2026 — a target confirmed by DESNZ, with the formal scheme-rule updates following. Two transition details matter:
- Applications already in progress are processed under current rules — i.e. at £7,500. If you’re an oil or LPG household mid-quote, the sequencing of your application could be worth £1,500.
- The uplift is confirmed for the current financial year. Government schemes get reviewed; households planning an installation more than a year out shouldn’t bank the £9,000 as permanent.
Separately, remember that residential heat pump installations continue to benefit from 0% VAT until 31 March 2027 — a quiet subsidy worth thousands that rarely makes headlines.
Why oil and LPG homes got the uplift
The government’s stated reasoning is the one rural households already know from their invoices: oil and LPG prices are volatile, exposed to global supply shocks — recent Middle East disruption was cited directly — and sit entirely outside the energy price cap’s protections. When crude spikes, kerosene and propane follow within weeks, and there’s no regulator smoothing the ride.
From a design-desk perspective the targeting is sound. As we show in our oil comparison and LPG comparison, off-grid homes get the strongest running-cost case for heat pumps — LPG especially — so each grant pound spent here buys more carbon saving and more bill relief than anywhere else it could go.
What it does to the numbers
Take a typical rural installation quoted at £13,000–£14,000 before support. At £9,000 of grant, the homeowner’s net cost lands around £4,000–£5,000 — for LPG households saving £600–£900 a year on fuel, that’s a payback measured in single-digit years, before any heat pump tariff sweetens it further. Even for the closer-run oil comparison, £1,500 of extra grant absorbs most of a sensible radiator-upgrade budget — the very spending that makes the system cheap to run for the next twenty years.
DESIGNER'S INSIGHT
“Grant uplifts bring out the worst sales behaviour — expect ‘£9,000 off!’ doorstep urgency all summer. Remember what the grant doesn’t change: your house’s heat loss, the flow temperature your radiators need, and the difference between a measured design and a guess. The uplift makes a good design cheaper. It makes a bad one cheaper too.”
Phil
Founder & Lead Designer, Heat Loss Hub
Our advice: how to play the timing
- Oil/LPG and not yet committed? Use the weeks before the window opens to get the engineering done: a room-by-room heat loss calculation or full independent design now means installers can price and apply the moment the £9,000 goes live.
- Mid-application at £7,500? Talk to your installer about sequencing before anything is lodged — the transition rules decide which rate you get, and £1,500 pays for a lot of radiators.
- On mains gas? Nothing changes for you — £7,500 continues, and the design quality still decides whether the running costs beat your gas bill. Start with the running-cost guide.
- Being pressured to “sign today before the rules change”? The rules just changed in your favour. Anyone using this announcement to rush you has told you what their survey will be like.
CONTENTS
OIL OR LPG HOME?
A measured design now means you’re ready the moment the £9,000 window opens — calmly, not in a queue.
£9,000 WORKS BEST WITH A DESIGN BEHIND IT
Be ready when the window opens — measured, designed, decided
Tell us about your oil or LPG home now and we’ll have the engineering ready for the grant era — reviewed personally, answered by email, no sales calls.