Behind on your energy bills: the grants that exist, and the write-off that doesn’t yet

First steps: your supplier has to work with you

Energy arrears are what advisers call a priority debt: Citizens Advice says you need to pay them before debts like credit cards. That is a reason to deal with them first, not a reason to accept whatever repayment figure you are offered. Ofgem’s advice to anyone struggling to pay, or expecting to, is to ask the supplier to agree a payment plan, payment break or reduction, to review your current payments and debt repayments, and to give you access to financial support it calls hardship funds. Ofgem also says to ask what schemes or grants your supplier offers for energy costs and for paying off energy debt.

The repayment plan is a right, not a favour. A licence rule Ofgem introduced from 15 December 2020 requires suppliers to put customers in debt on realistic and sustainable repayment plans, with repayment rates set by ability to pay. Ofgem’s consumer standards, in force from 14 December 2023, mean suppliers should offer debt repayment plans at the earliest opportunity and consider temporary repayment holidays where appropriate, and its November 2025 debt strategy lists ‘the right to an affordable repayment plan’ in its Know Your Rights guide. Citizens Advice puts it plainly: the supplier must take into account how much you can afford and how much energy you will use in future. You can ask for a short pause in repayments; the supplier must consider your situation, though it does not have to agree.

Get free debt advice before you apply for anything. Most of the grants on this page ask for proof that you have had it, and Breathing Space and Debt Relief Orders can only be set up through an adviser. StepChange gives free debt advice across the UK on 0800 138 1111 (Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm, Saturday 9am to 2pm) and online 24 hours a day. National Debtline is on 0808 808 4000 (Monday to Friday 9am to 8pm, Saturday 9.30am to 1pm) with webchat, for England, Wales and Scotland. Citizens Advice runs a debt helpline on 0800 240 4420 (Monday to Friday 9am to 8pm, Saturday 9.30am to 1pm) and its Adviceline on 0800 144 8848 in England; in Wales, Advicelink Cymru is on 0800 702 2020, and in Scotland Energyadvice.scot is on 0808 196 8660 (Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm). Ofgem also points to MoneyHelper for free debt information. In Northern Ireland, Advice NI’s freephone line is 0800 915 4604.

While you are on the phone to your supplier, ask to join its Priority Services Register if anyone in the home has reached State Pension age, is pregnant or has young children, is disabled or living with a long-term condition, or if your circumstances have changed through injury, a hospital stay, bereavement or losing a job. Among other things, being on it can mean a prepayment meter is moved if you cannot safely reach it to top up.

The British Gas Energy Trust grant: up to £1,700, and you don’t need to be with British Gas

The British Gas Energy Trust is an independent charity (registered number 1179578). In 2026 British Gas committed £40 million to it over the next five years, £8 million a year. Its previous scheme, the Individuals and Families Fund, has closed; the Trust says applications submitted before 4 September 2026 will be assessed in due course. Its replacement, the Energy Support Grant, opens on 1 October 2026. The Trust describes it as one grant, one set of eligibility criteria and a simpler application, and the headline is a grant of up to £1,700 to write off energy debt, applied as credit to your energy account rather than paid to you. In 2025/26 the Trust says it supported 5,421 people with energy debt write-off grants and distributed more than £15.6 million in grants and funding.

Who can apply. You must live in England, Wales or Scotland; Northern Ireland is not covered. Both prepayment meter and credit account customers qualify, of British Gas or of other suppliers. Prepayment customers must owe between £50 and £1,700; credit account customers between £100 and £1,700. The debt must be on a current energy account in your name at your home: the Trust says it cannot consider closed accounts, including where you have moved home or changed supplier. You must not have had a grant from the Trust in the last two years. You must have received money advice or guidance within the last six months; if you have not, the Trust points you to a self-help benefits calculator inside the application, and it warns that it needs the full money advice document, because screenshots and partial pages cannot be accepted. Your household income must be under £25,000, or someone in the household must be registered disabled and receiving a disability benefit, or receive Carer’s Allowance, or the household must have three or more children, be a single occupant, or be a lone parent household with fewer than three children. The Trust’s application portal also says you must be in or facing fuel poverty.

The supplier-first rule. If you are a customer of OVO, Boost, E.ON Next, EDF, ScottishPower, Octopus, Shell Energy, SSE, Utility Warehouse or Sainsbury’s Energy, the Trust says you must apply to your own supplier’s support fund first and can only apply to the Trust if you have recently been declined, with evidence of the decline. The list is partly out of date: Octopus says it moved every Shell Energy Retail account across on 28 March 2024, so former Shell customers are Octopus customers and should use Octo Assist. We could not find a published fund page for Boost or SSE on 29 September, so if you are with either, ask directly and keep any written reply. The supplier funds are set out below.

How to apply. Applications go through the Trust’s online portal at bget.org.uk, where you create an account first. The portal lists the evidence it asks for, and says you cannot submit without it: proof of household income from the last six months; proof of money advice or guidance from the last six months in the form of a standard financial statement, letter or personal action plan; and, for customers of other suppliers, a bill from the last four weeks on actual readings showing your name, account number or supply address, or an email from your supplier confirming those details and the balance. The Trust’s FAQ says to list every gas and electricity debt up front, because more cannot be added once the application is in, that if evidence is missing it will email you and give you 30 days to provide it, and that its decision is final with no appeals procedure, though you can reapply after a change of circumstances. If you succeed you cannot reapply for two years. On 29 September the portal said applications were taking about six weeks on average.

Two things to know before you count on it. First, the Trust says that meeting the criteria does not guarantee a grant, because funding is limited and subject to availability, and it publishes no closing date or budget for the new grant. It also says it can close the application portal with little or no notice once funds have been spent, so if you qualify, apply early rather than waiting. Second, the Trust’s guidance for money advisers says it wants to fund applicants who can show a sustainable position after the grant, that deficit budgets will only be considered in exceptional circumstances, and that people who are eligible for a Debt Relief Order may not succeed, because there may be another route for their debt. If your adviser has raised a Debt Relief Order with you, talk that through before you apply.

Supplier hardship funds, supplier by supplier

Each of the large suppliers below runs its own fund, and for six of them it is the door you must knock on before the British Gas Energy Trust will look at you. The rules, amounts and administrators differ, and several suppliers publish no figures at all, so we have said where a number comes from and where there is none. The shared Charis Let’s Talk Energy Fund, which several suppliers once backed, was marked closed on 29 September 2026; the only energy-debt funds Charis listed as open were the E.ON Next Energy Fund and the EDF Customer Support Fund.

Octopus Energy: Octo Assist. A £40 million support package, in Octopus’s words, designed to help those who need it most. The help is tailored rather than a fixed grant: standing charge holidays, where Octopus says it can waive the payment over winter; grants to offset high bills for customers in the greatest need; a long-term payment plan or a payment holiday; and free electric blankets. You apply by filling in a short household budget form, which Octopus runs through a service called Paylink, and there is no published amount per household. Former Shell Energy customers apply here.

EDF: Customer Support Fund. Grants and support for vulnerable EDF customers struggling with energy debt, covering electricity or gas bill debts and essential white goods such as a fridge or cooker. EDF says you can apply only after you have had independent debt advice, and has teamed up with Citizens Advice Plymouth to provide it free. You will need your EDF account number, the current debt balance on every EDF account you hold, and details of your household finances and any vulnerability. Charis administers it and listed it as open on 29 September. EDF’s own page states no grant ceiling, so treat any figure you see elsewhere with care.

E.ON Next: Energy Fund, which also covers Sainsbury’s Energy customers. Grants towards gas and electricity debt, and replacement appliances, for customers in financial hardship. Awards work through a three-month Provisional Award Scheme: E.ON suspends the debt while you keep up your payments, and if every payment is made the debt is cleared at the end. You must be able to cover your average monthly energy use to be eligible. E.ON’s page recommends money advice rather than requiring it, and Charis, which manages the fund, says eligibility is a mix of financial and health-related criteria; no income thresholds or cap are published. Open on 29 September.

OVO: Extra Support. OVO’s package includes direct financial support towards an energy bill or existing energy debt for eligible customers, alongside Direct Debit reductions, emergency credit top-ups, debt repayment support and extended repayment plans, the Priority Services Register and the Warm Home Discount. OVO says household income, disposable income and medical needs are taken into account to prioritise those who need help most, and that it will not be able to offer everything to everyone. No amounts or thresholds are published.

ScottishPower: Hardship Fund. It can clear or reduce the arrears on a ScottishPower account by crediting it. Step one is free debt advice, for example from StepChange; step two is an application to Sigma Connected Support, which administers the fund, online or on 0121 285 2595. Awards are paid once you commit to a payment arrangement for your ongoing use. You may qualify if you receive a listed means-tested benefit, have a low household income, or have special circumstances such as an income reduction due to illness. Sigma’s page sets a monthly household income threshold of £1,751 for Universal Credit households and an annual threshold of £21,015 for other benefit households, allows one award every three years, requires the account to be more than £100 in debt, and asks for evidence of debt advice with a reference number and Financial Action Plan. ScottishPower’s own page was last updated on 26 September 2025, and Sigma says its terms are subject to change, so check the figures when you apply.

Utility Warehouse. UW runs a hardship fund with Citizens Advice Plymouth, offering budget planning advice, a benefit entitlement review, energy efficiency advice, debt advice and financial assistance, and a separate Prepayment Relief Fund that gives credit to prepayment customers who are struggling to afford their energy. For either, UW says to call it on 0333 777 3215. No eligibility rules or amounts are published.

British Gas. British Gas’s route is the Energy Support Grant above; British Gas customers apply straight to the Trust. Boost and SSE appear on the Trust’s supplier-first list, but we could not confirm a fund for either on 29 September. Utilita is not on that list, so Utilita customers can apply to the Trust directly.

On Universal Credit, income-related ESA or Pension Credit: Fuel Direct

If you receive Universal Credit, income-related Employment and Support Allowance or Pension Credit, money can be taken from the benefit and paid straight to your supplier to clear energy debt. GOV.UK calls this third party deductions, or, for gas and electricity, Fuel Direct. The benefit office will only agree to it if the supplier has tried other ways of getting the money, and deductions can be made for up to three debts at once. Citizens Advice also lists income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance and Income Support as qualifying benefits.

The rates are fixed. On Universal Credit, 5 per cent is deducted from your benefit payment for each debt; on the other benefits it is £4.80 a week per debt. DWP’s Universal Credit guidance adds that normally the most that can be taken from a payment to repay a debt is 15 per cent of your standard allowance, and that only three third-party deductions can be taken at any one time; last resort deductions can take it above 15 per cent. You can also have your ongoing bills paid this way, on top of the debt: you contact your supplier, it needs your consent, and you can give that consent on the phone. On Universal Credit, deductions for ongoing bills stop once the debt is repaid.

To set it up, ask your supplier whether you can use Fuel Direct to pay your debt. Citizens Advice says that if you are working while on Universal Credit you can only use Fuel Direct if your earnings are less than your work allowance, and its view is that Fuel Direct is usually better than getting a prepayment meter, because you do not risk being left without gas or electricity. Northern Ireland runs its own Third Party Deduction Scheme through the Department for Communities, covered in the Northern Ireland section below.

Emergency help when the meter is about to run out

If you are on a prepayment meter and cannot afford to top up, tell your supplier. Ofgem says it must offer to help, for example with extra credit if you are in a vulnerable situation or while you work out ways to pay, and must work with you to agree a payment plan you can afford for any credit it gives you. Ofgem made emergency credit, friendly hours credit for evenings and weekends, and additional support credit mandatory for suppliers to offer from 15 December 2020. Citizens Advice says you can usually get emergency credit of about £10, so it buys time rather than a week.

Fuel Bank Foundation vouchers. The Fuel Bank Foundation is a charity that puts emergency credit on prepayment meters. It says it gives approximately two weeks’ worth of fuel, that any supplier’s meter is topped up within a couple of hours, that it works through more than 850 partners, and that 99.8 per cent of people were helped on the same day between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026. The catch is the route in: the Foundation says it relies on its partners, organisations such as food banks, advice agencies, local authorities and charities, to identify people who are struggling, and its website offers no way to apply directly. If you need one, ask your local food bank, Citizens Advice, your council’s welfare team or the advice line you are already talking to whether they are a Fuel Bank partner.

Council help. In England, emergency help that can cover energy costs, called a Crisis Payment, comes from the Crisis and Resilience Fund, the scheme that replaced the Household Support Fund in April 2026 and is run by county and unitary councils. Our guide covers how to apply and the equivalents in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Prepayment meters: what your supplier can and cannot do

A supplier can move you to a prepayment meter without your permission only where you are building up debt and other ways of recovering it have not worked, and Ofgem says it should always be a last resort. Before it does, it must make reasonable efforts to agree another way for you to repay and offer support if you are struggling, make at least ten attempts to contact you using different methods, and visit your home to check that a prepayment meter would be safe and suitable. The person who visits should wear an audio recording device or body-worn camera. Once a meter is installed without your permission, or a smart meter is switched remotely to prepayment mode, the supplier must give you £30 credit.

Some households must not be moved at all. Ofgem’s list covers homes where anyone has a terminal illness or a severe health condition; where someone depends on a continuous energy supply because of a medical condition or powered medical equipment; where everyone is aged 75 or over and nobody else living there can provide support; where a child under two lives; where nobody can top up because of a physical or mental health condition; and where temporary circumstances such as pregnancy or bereavement make a prepayment meter unsafe or unsuitable. If any of that describes your household, tell your supplier, and put it in writing.

If you were forced onto a prepayment meter between 1 January 2022 and 21 January 2023 and your supplier did not follow the rules properly, Ofgem says you may be able to claim compensation and points you to Citizens Advice. Ofgem’s pages carry no visible date; in November 2025 it said it intended to conclude its review of the 2023 involuntary prepayment rules in the first half of 2026, and we found no published outcome, so the rules above are the live ones on 29 September.

Breathing Space and Debt Relief Orders

Breathing Space. In England and Wales, the Debt Respite Scheme, known as Breathing Space, gives you up to 60 days of protection from your creditors while you get debt advice and make a plan. During it, enforcement action cannot be taken against you, creditors cannot contact you about the debts included, and they cannot add interest or charges. You still need to make your debt repayments. Arrears on utility bills are qualifying debts under the government’s guidance for advisers, so energy arrears can go in. You cannot apply yourself: a debt adviser submits the application on your behalf if it is the right thing to do. It is free to apply, though GOV.UK notes some debt advisers charge a fee, so use a free one. You cannot get it if you have used Breathing Space in the last 12 months, unless that was for a mental health crisis; if you are getting mental health crisis treatment, the protection lasts for the length of the treatment plus another 30 days. Ofgem’s help page says Scotland’s equivalent is called a debt moratorium.

Debt Relief Orders. A DRO is a way of dealing with debts in England and Wales if you owe less than £50,000, do not have much spare income and do not own your home. You are generally eligible if you have less than £75 a month spare income and less than £2,000 of assets, do not own a vehicle worth £4,000 or more, have lived or worked in England and Wales within the last three years, and have not applied for a DRO within the last six years. Gas and electricity debts are among the qualifying debts, alongside rent arrears, credit cards, overdrafts and loans. With a DRO you stop making payments towards the included debts for 12 months, you do not pay for it, and you apply through an approved debt adviser. GOV.UK says you cannot apply for one if you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland; Northern Ireland runs its own DRO, covered below.

One interaction to know about: the British Gas Energy Trust’s guidance for advisers says people eligible for a DRO may not succeed with a grant application, because there may be another route for their debt. That is a conversation for your adviser, not a reason to skip either.

Fact check: is there an energy debt write-off in 2026?

Not yet, and not one you can apply for. The scheme behind the headlines is Ofgem’s Debt Relief Scheme. Ofgem consulted on it from 6 November to 19 December 2025, said it expected to publish its decision in January 2026, and proposed implementation in early 2026 subject to legislation allowing energy suppliers and the Department for Work and Pensions to share data on who receives means-tested benefits. On 29 September 2026 the consultation page still read ‘Closed (awaiting decision)’ and linked no decision.

What was proposed, for the record. Phase 1 would cover a domestic customer holding £100 or more of eligible debt built up between 1 April 2022 and 31 March 2024 who DWP identifies as receiving means-tested benefits. Customers who had made a payment in their most recent billing period would qualify; others would need to agree to pursue a repayment plan, to pay through Fuel Direct, or to a referral to a debt advice charity. Ofgem’s delivery guidance says customers would be identified automatically by matching supplier and DWP data, and that customers would not be able to present benefit letters or bank statements as proof, to support counter-fraud practices. In other words, even when it launches, there is no application form, no phone line and nothing to register for. Suppliers would be expected to contact eligible customers and apply the relief to their accounts.

The size keeps moving because it is an estimate for a scheme that has not started. Ofgem’s November 2025 debt strategy page said up to 200,000 consumers and up to £500 million of debt; its impact assessment of the same month said 280,000 to 400,000 accounts and £312.4 million to £472.9 million; the government’s explanatory memorandum to the data-sharing regulations, published in July 2026, said approximately £500 million to £1 billion. Ofgem also proposed a Phase 2 later in 2026 for customers in genuine payment difficulty who are not on means-tested benefits, assessed on income and expenditure, and its impact assessment put the cost, recovered through network charges, at about £3.23 to £5.13 per dual-fuel household over one year.

What has changed recently is the legal blocker. The Digital Government (Disclosure of Information) Regulations 2026, which allow information to be disclosed to energy suppliers for a debt relief requirement imposed by Ofgem, were made on 17 September 2026 and came into force on 18 September. That clears the obstacle Ofgem named; it does not launch the scheme, and we found no Ofgem or ministerial statement since. Earlier in the year, Utility Week reported on 7 May 2026 that the scheme had been delayed indefinitely under orders from the Treasury, and Reuters reported on 11 May that it had yet to launch, quoting an Ofgem spokesperson saying ministers needed to weigh up the costs and benefits; those are secondary reports, not an Ofgem decision. If a decision is published we will update this page and the energy bill help hub.

The practical point. Because eligibility is meant to be found automatically and benefit proof is refused by design, anyone who offers to apply for the write-off on your behalf, to register you, or to check your eligibility for a fee is describing a process that does not exist. The write-off grant that does exist today is the British Gas Energy Trust grant above, which clears up to £1,700 and costs nothing to apply for.

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland has a different regulator, the Utility Regulator, and Ofgem’s prepayment and licence rules above do not apply there. Neither does the British Gas Energy Trust grant, which is for England, Wales and Scotland only, nor the Warm Home Discount. nidirect’s advice for anyone struggling to pay is to contact the supplier as soon as possible: depending on your circumstances, suppliers may reassess or cut debt repayments and bill payments for customers in financial trouble, and can refer you to organisations such as Advice NI. nidirect also points to MoneyHelper’s debt advice locator, the Consumer Council and the NI Energy Advice line.

Last winter’s Domestic Consumer Energy Charter set out what NI electricity and gas suppliers voluntarily committed to between 1 November 2025 and 31 March 2026: a contribution to a third-party hardship fund; for customers new to repaying debt through a prepayment meter, a repayment rate of no more than 20 per cent unless they asked, and a check-in for anyone on the maximum 40 per cent rate; no moves to prepayment for customers on a supplier’s care register unless they asked; and no moves to prepayment without consent for customers in debt between 1 December 2025 and 31 January 2026. Those winter commitments ended on 31 March 2026, and no 2026/27 charter had been published on the Utility Regulator’s site by 29 September, so treat them as last winter’s terms until a new one appears. The same charter also lists commitments it describes as all year round: suppliers will not disconnect you for debt as long as you are willing to work with them and keep in touch, and will work with you on a repayment plan based on what you can afford. The hardship money went to external funds or charities of each supplier’s choosing, and the charter’s FAQ says the fund providers decide who is eligible and how to get help, so ask your supplier or Advice NI which fund applies to you.

Numbers to call: NI Energy Advice (Housing Executive) on 0800 111 4455, the Consumer Council on 0800 121 6022, Advice NI on 0800 915 4604, and Make the Call on 0800 232 1271 for a check of the benefits and support you are entitled to. Northern Ireland has its own Third Party Deduction Scheme run by the Department for Communities, and its own Debt Relief Order, made through the Insolvency Service under the Department for the Economy, with similar limits to England and Wales: debts of no more than £50,000, disposable income of no more than £75 a month, other assets of no more than £2,000, and a car worth up to £4,000.

Two NI-only payments help with the bill itself. Households automatically get a non-means-tested Household Electricity Discount in 2026, 2027 and 2028; this year’s is £63, made from 6 October 2026, applied to the bill or as credit on a pre-pay or keypad meter when you top up, with no application needed. nidirect warns that you will never be asked to apply or for bank details, so any message asking for either is a scam. And if oil is your main heating and you receive a qualifying income-related benefit or a disability benefit, or have an annual income under £30,000 after certain deductions, the £100 Home Heating Oil Voucher takes applications from 9 September 2026 until 31 March 2027.

What else you may qualify for

Debt help sits alongside the winter schemes, and the same benefits often unlock both. The Warm Home Discount is a one-off £150 off your electricity bill; GOV.UK says the scheme will reopen in October 2026, that in England and Wales what counts is your situation on 23 August 2026, with your supplier in the scheme, you or your partner on Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, income-related ESA or Pension Credit, and your name or your partner’s on the electricity bill, and that it is not available in Northern Ireland. If you are of State Pension age, check Pension Credit first: it is one of the qualifying benefits for the Warm Home Discount and can open the door to other help. Our energy bill help hub lists every scheme we track with its dates.