Winter Fuel Payment

For winter 2026-27 you qualify for the Winter Fuel Payment if both of these apply:

• you were born on or before 27 June 1960
• you lived in England or Wales during the qualifying week, 21 to 27 September 2026

That is the entire eligibility test. You do not need to be receiving Pension Credit, Universal Credit or any other benefit. If you have read elsewhere that the payment goes only to Pension Credit households, that rule applied to winter 2024-25 and has since been reversed.

You do not normally need to claim. If you are eligible you are paid automatically, and you should receive a letter in October or November telling you how much you will get.

Care homes: you can still be paid if you live in a care home, at a reduced rate. You are not eligible, however, if you lived in a care home for the whole period from 29 June 2026 or earlier and you receive Pension Credit, Universal Credit or income-related Employment and Support Allowance.

Scotland: the Winter Fuel Payment does not apply in Scotland. It was replaced by the Pension Age Winter Heating Payment, paid by Social Security Scotland and worth between £105.55 and £316.70. The same income recovery rule applies to it.

The payment is made per person, not per household. Two eligible people living together each receive their own payment. How much you get depends on your age band and on whether anyone you live with is also eligible.

The age bands are set by date of birth:

• Under 80 — born between 28 September 1946 and 27 June 1960
• 80 or over — born before 28 September 1946

If you live alone, or nobody else in your household is eligible:

• under 80: £200
• 80 or over: £300

If you live with another eligible person:

• both of you under 80: £100 each
• both of you 80 or over: £150 each
• one of you 80 or over and the other under 80: £200 for the older person and £100 for the younger one

If you live in a care home and are eligible:

• under 80: £100
• 80 or over: £150

Joint benefit claims work differently. If you and a partner have a joint claim for Pension Credit, Universal Credit or income-related ESA, a single payment is made to one of you: £200 if you were both born between 28 September 1946 and 27 June 1960, or £300 if either of you was born before 28 September 1946.

The means test was replaced by a clawback. Everyone above the age threshold is paid, and HMRC then recovers the money from higher-income pensioners afterwards.

If your own total taxable income for the year is over £35,000, HMRC takes back the whole payment. It is all or nothing: the amount is not tapered, so being slightly over the threshold costs you the entire payment and being slightly under it costs you nothing.

Two points are widely misunderstood:

• The threshold is individual, not household. Your partner's income does not count towards your £35,000. A couple who each earn just under the threshold keep both payments. A couple where one earns well over it and the other has very little keep one.
• It is your total taxable income for the tax year, before any deductions — not just your earnings. If you are anywhere near the threshold, check the figure HMRC holds for you rather than estimating from payslips or a pension statement alone.

Recovery normally happens through your tax code. If you complete a Self Assessment return, it is collected through your tax bill instead.

Opting out: rather than be paid and then have the money clawed back, you can opt out of receiving the payment at all. For winter 2026-27 the deadline to opt out was 6pm on 18 September 2026, so it has passed for this winter. If you expect to be over the threshold in future years, contact the Winter Fuel Payment Centre on 0800 731 0160 to ask about opting out ahead of the next deadline.

Payments are made in November or December, so first check that you are not simply expecting it too early. You should get a letter in October or November confirming the amount.

If the payment has not arrived and you believe you are eligible, contact the Winter Fuel Payment Centre:

• Phone: 0800 731 0160 (Monday to Friday 8am–6pm)
• Address: Winter Fuel Payment Centre, Mail Handling Site A, Wolverhampton WV98 1LR

You will need your National Insurance number and bank account details. Payments are normally issued automatically, but data matching errors can occasionally cause one to be missed, and a missed payment can usually be identified and issued.

Most people are paid automatically and never need to make a claim. You may need to claim if you do not receive the State Pension or any other benefit — ring the Centre to check whether a claim is needed in your case.

The deadline to claim for a given winter is 31 March following that winter, so a claim for winter 2026-27 must reach the Centre by 31 March 2027.

For winter 2024-25 the government restricted the Winter Fuel Payment to households receiving Pension Credit or another qualifying means-tested benefit. Pensioners above the age threshold who were not on a qualifying benefit lost a payment they had previously received automatically, and that is the version of the rule still repeated in a great deal of older advice.

That restriction was reversed from winter 2025-26 onwards. The payment returned to everyone above the age threshold and the means test was replaced by the income recovery described above. If you lost the payment in winter 2024-25 and never claimed Pension Credit, you should still have been paid automatically for winter 2025-26 and again for winter 2026-27 — you did not need to do anything to get it back.

Pension Credit is no longer the route to the Winter Fuel Payment. Disregard any advice, including older advice from otherwise reliable sources, that tells you to claim Pension Credit in order to receive it.

Pension Credit remains very much worth claiming in its own right. It tops up weekly income to a minimum guaranteed level of £238.00 for single pensioners and £363.25 for couples (2026/27 rates), and around one million eligible pensioners do not claim it. It also still unlocks full Council Tax Reduction, free NHS dental treatment and eye tests, help with NHS travel costs, Cold Weather Payments, the Warm Home Discount, and a free TV licence if you are 75 or over. Check using the calculator at gov.uk/pension-credit/eligibility. Entitlement can be enhanced by severe disability, caring responsibilities or housing costs, so some people who assume they cannot qualify are entitled to a small amount — and a small award is still worth having for everything else it brings with it.