Winter Fuel payment 2025/26

 

WINTER FUEL PAYMENT 2025/26

 England and Wales

Qualifying

·       Everyone aged 66 by 21 September this year – born 21/9/1959 or before – will get the Winter Fuel Payment in Nov/Dec 2025. It will be paid automatically into your bank account without a claim. Ignore any emails or messages inviting you to claim it. They are from thieves. Don’t click on any links and delete them. 

·        However, a very few who have not claimed their state pension, have never worked in the UK, or have legally arrived in the UK recently may not be known to the Department for Work and Pensions. They will be missed and will have to claim. You can’t claim yet. But later in the year go to gov.uk and search ‘winter fuel payment’. The deadline is March 2026

·                How much

      The Payment is £200 per household where one or both is aged 66 to 79 and £300 if one or both are over 80 - born 21/9/45 or earlier.

·        Couples not on means-tested benefits will get half each, so either £100 or £150 each.  

      For a couple where one claims a means-tested benefit, the whole amount will be paid to that person

·        People in care homes will get the Winter Fuel Payment as long as they do not claim any means-tested benefit there. They will get the half payment - £100 aged 66-79 and £150 aged 80 or more. If they get a means-tested benefit they will not get the payment.

People living outside the UK cannot get the Winter Fuel Payment. In Winter 2023/24 and earlier it was payable to some people in the EEA and before that in parts of the EU and before that throughout the EU, but that is no longer the case.

Taking it back

·        Individuals who get Winter Fuel Payment who have a taxable income above £35,000 in 2025/26 will have their Winter Fuel Payment taken back in full through their income tax in 2026/27. That will be done through their tax code. A very few of them who cannot have it recovered that way but do self-assessment will pay it back through that. HMRC says that it will all be done automatically without the need to register or take any action. Details are promised within the next month.

·        Taxable income includes all money that counts, or could count, towards income tax due in a year. Earnings, state pension, pensions from a job, retirement annuities, personal pensions, drawdown from a SIPP, taxable social security benefits such as widow's benefit, carers allowance, and incapacity benefit, rental income, interest on savings, and dividends will all be counted. Savings interest and dividends are counted in full including the amount within the £1000 or £500 personal savings allowance or the £500 dividend allowance. HMRC says that even any profits earned from trading which is within the £1000 trading allowance will be counted. However, interest on ISA savings and dividends on ISA investments are not taxable and do not count as taxable income. Capital gains are not counted as income.

·        There will be no assessment of household incomes. So a low-income husband may keep £100 and his high income wife may have her £100 taken back through her tax. Or £150 if one of them is over 80.

·        There will be no assessment of capital so the value of a home or savings or investments or property will not be counted. So some ‘millionaires’ in the broadest definition will still get it even if their home or savings or both together exceed £1 million but their individual taxable income is £35,000 or below.

·        Government says about two million will have it taken back and more than 9 million will keep it.

·        Government says the threshold of £35,000 was chosen to ensure all who need it get it and it is ‘broadly in line with average earnings’.

·        Nine million pensioners to receive Winter Fuel Payments this winter - GOV.UK

 

Northern Ireland

·        Last winter, Northern Ireland implemented the pension credit means-test for the Winter Fuel Payment, but in addition gave £100 to every pensioner of qualifying age who did not get the payment.

·        This winter it will follow the England and Wales rules, the Communities Minister has confirmed.

·        Stormont confirms Winter Fuel Payment reinstated for Northern Ireland | BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

 

Scotland

·        In Scotland the Winter Fuel Payment was paid last winter by the DWP on the same terms as it was in England and Wales – that is to pensioners on pension credit (or a couple of other means tested benefits). 

·        From this winter the payment will be called the Pension Age Winter Heating Payment. First Minister John Swinney said on Monday 16 June "I am very happy to confirm that no pensioner in Scotland will receive less than they would under the new UK scheme. Details will be set out in due course by my Government." See official statement

Paul Lewis

17 June 2025

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