Air-to-Air Heat Pump Grant: Can You Claim £2,500 Yet?

Updated 13 July 2026 · SEO Dons Editorial

The honest short answer

Yes, the grant is real and it is law. Since 28 April 2026, air-to-air heat pumps qualify for a flat £2,500 under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) in England and Wales — the first time UK government money has gone towards air-conditioning-style heating. But there is a gap between "the grant exists" and "you can claim it this month". The money can only be released through an MCS-certified air-to-air installer fitting an MCS-certified product, and that certification route is still being stood up. As at July 2026, certified air-to-air installers are scarce, so for a lot of households the grant is legally available yet hard to redeem in practice. If you are reading this to work out whether to hold on or press ahead, this piece gives you the straight version.

What the £2,500 air-to-air heat pump grant actually is

The figure is fixed. Air-to-air was added to the Boiler Upgrade Scheme by SI 2026/390, which came into force on 28 April 2026 and runs to 2030. It is a flat £2,500 — not the £7,500 you may have seen quoted, which is reserved for air-to-water and ground-source heat pumps. Air-to-air is also excluded from the £9,000 off-gas uplift that runs from 21 July 2026 for oil and LPG homes. One grant per property, deducted upfront from your installer's quote, so you never handle the money yourself and there is no cheque to chase.

To qualify, the unit must replace existing fossil-fuel or electric heating — gov.uk lists "oil, gas, electric or LPG". It cannot be a hybrid: you cannot keep a gas boiler running for space heating alongside it. New-builds (other than eligible self-builds) and social housing are excluded, and the property must not already have a heat pump. One helpful change: since 28 April 2026 the old EPC requirement has been removed, so a recent fuel bill plus photographs are accepted instead of a valid Energy Performance Certificate.

The catch: MCS air-to-air certification is still being built

This is the part most sites leave out, and it is the whole reason the grant is hard to claim right now. The grant is law, but the machinery that lets an installer claim it on your behalf is not fully switched on yet.

Every BUS claim depends on MCS certification — both the installer and the product must be MCS-certified for the specific technology. For air-to-air, that scheme is new. Certification bodies are still gaining UKAS accreditation to certify air-to-air installers; the installer's Technical Supervisor needs an RACHP Level 3 qualification; and MCS has given no fixed date for when the route will be widely open, describing timescales as varying. In plain terms, the paperwork behind the grant is still being assembled while homeowners are already asking for it.

The consequence is simple, and worth stating bluntly. No MCS-certified air-to-air installation means no grant. There is no self-claim route, no retrospective route, and no workaround. So even though the £2,500 is written into law, the number of firms that can legally deliver it in mid-2026 is small, and demand is arriving faster than certified capacity. That is the honest position, and anyone telling you otherwise is either lucky to be in a well-served area or not being straight with you.

So can you claim it right now, or not?

It depends entirely on whether you can find an MCS-certified air-to-air installer who covers your area and has availability. Some can. Many regions have very few, or none yet. If an installer tells you they can fit your system next week and claim the grant, ask to see their MCS certificate and check that the scope explicitly covers air-to-air — listed as air source heat pump, air to air — not just air-to-water. A firm certified only for air-to-water cannot claim the £2,500 on an air-to-air job, however experienced they are with the kit.

Be honest with yourself about the property end too. Air-to-air suits all-electric and storage-heater homes, flats, and park homes particularly well, along with off-gas homes replacing electric or LPG heating. If you want cooling in summer but intend to keep your gas boiler for heating, you will not qualify, because the boiler has to go. And if you are in Scotland or Northern Ireland, BUS does not apply at all — Home Energy Scotland excludes air-to-air because it does not provide hot water, so the grant is simply not on the table there.

What support is actually available to you today

Support	Value	Available now?	Notes (as at July 2026)
BUS grant (air-to-air)	£2,500 flat	Law, but gated by scarce MCS installers	England & Wales, residential only, to 2030
0% VAT	Roughly 20% off supply + install	Yes — usable today	UK-wide, to 31 March 2027, then 5%
ECO4	Not applicable	No	Excludes air-to-air; runs to 31 Dec 2026
Home Energy Scotland	Not applicable	No	Excludes air-to-air (needs heating + hot water)

The 0% VAT window works today — use it

Here is the piece of good news you can act on immediately. Separate from the grant, the supply and installation of a permanently-fixed air-to-air unit that provides heating carries 0% VAT across the whole UK until 31 March 2027, under HMRC VAT Notice 708/6. After that it rises to 5%, not back to 20%. This is a price cut rather than a grant, it needs no MCS gatekeeper, and it stacks on top of the BUS £2,500 if you manage to claim both. The one condition worth remembering: cooling-only units do not qualify, because the unit has to provide heating.

For Scotland and Northern Ireland, where BUS does not apply, the 0% VAT is currently the only support available for air-to-air — but it is genuinely available, right now, with no waiting list. On a typical single-room split at £1,200 to £3,000 including 0% VAT, or a two-room multi-split at £2,800 to £4,500, that relief is a meaningful chunk on its own.

What to do while certification catches up

Get on installers' waiting lists now. Certified capacity is the bottleneck, not the law. The households who register early with firms working towards air-to-air certification will be first in the queue when slots open.
Verify MCS air-to-air scope before you commit a penny. Ask for the certificate, confirm the scope reads air source heat pump — air to air, and confirm the product model is on the MCS product list. Air-to-water certification does not count.
Use the 0% VAT regardless. It applies today, UK-wide, and does not depend on finding a certified installer or on where you live. Even if the grant is out of reach this year, the VAT relief is not.
Keep a hot-water plan. Air-to-air makes no domestic hot water — that is inherent to the technology. You will need to keep a separate immersion, cylinder, or hot-water heat pump, so factor that into your costs and your quotes.
Do not wait for a 2027 launch. The grant is live now; what is catching up is installer certification, not the scheme itself. Treating this as a future scheme means missing the head start.

The bottom line

The £2,500 air-to-air heat pump grant is not marketing spin and it is not a future promise — it is law, in force, and running to 2030. What is not yet fully in place is the MCS certification pipeline that lets an installer claim it for you, and until that catches up, availability is patchy and honesty is the only sensible policy. Check your eligibility, get on the lists, insist on seeing the right MCS scope, and lean on the 0% VAT you can use today. If you qualify, the grant is worth waiting the right way for. If you do not, it is better to know now than to be sold a job that can never claim it.

Find an MCS-certified air-to-air installer

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Tell us a little about your home and we’ll help you find a genuinely MCS-certified air-to-air installer — the only kind who can secure your £2,500 grant. We’re an independent guide, not an installer, and we don’t sell kit.

1. Tell us your situation — your postcode and what you heat with now.
2. We sense-check the grant and point you to MCS-certified air-to-air installers near you.
3. You get honest quotes — no obligation, and no pushy calls.

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