Air to Air Heat Pump Grant in Wales
Does the air-to-air heat pump grant apply in Wales?
Yes. If you own your home in Wales, you can claim the £2,500 air-to-air heat pump grant through the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS). The scheme covers England and Wales together, and air-to-air units became eligible on 28 April 2026 under SI 2026/390. It is funded through to 2030 (gov.uk), figures as at July 2026.
The important caveat is the same one homeowners face across England. The grant is law, but MCS certification for air-to-air installers is still being rolled out, so genuinely MCS-certified Welsh installers are scarce in mid-2026. No MCS-certified air-to-air installation means no grant, however clearly you qualify on paper.
What support is actually available in Wales
Wales sits in a slightly better position than Scotland or Northern Ireland, because BUS applies here and they get 0% VAT only. You have up to three routes to reduce the cost of an air-to-air system, though they rarely all apply to the same household.
| Support | Air-to-air in Wales? | What it is (as at July 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) | Yes | Flat £2,500, deducted upfront from your installer's quote. MCS installer and product required. |
| Warm Homes Nest | Rarely | Means-tested Welsh Government scheme. Usually funds air-to-water heat pumps, not air-to-air. |
| 0% VAT | Yes | UK-wide price cut on supply and installation of a fixed heating air-to-air unit, to 31 March 2027, then 5%. |
The £2,500 is a flat figure. It is not the £7,500 you may have read about — that larger grant, and the £9,000 off-gas oil and LPG uplift, are for air-to-water and ground-source heat pumps only. Air-to-air is excluded from both. There is one grant per property (gov.uk).
The MCS-certification bottleneck in Wales
This is where honesty matters more than a headline number. The BUS grant became claimable for air-to-air on 28 April 2026, but MCS air-to-air certification is a separate process that is still maturing. Certification bodies are gaining UKAS accreditation to certify air-to-air installers, and an installer's Technical Supervisor needs RACHP Level 3 qualifications. MCS has published no fixed completion date, describing timescales as varying (MCS).
In practice this means that across Wales, the pool of installers who can currently sign off an MCS-certified air-to-air job is small. If a company tells you the grant is guaranteed and readily available today, treat that as a warning sign. The realistic position in mid-2026 is that the grant is real, legal and worth waiting for, but not yet easy to claim everywhere in Wales. It is worth confirming an installer's live MCS air-to-air certification before you commit.
Warm Homes Nest — usually for air-to-water
If you are on a low income or receive certain benefits, you may qualify for the Welsh Government's Warm Homes Nest scheme, which can fund heating and insulation improvements at no cost to you (gov.wales). Be aware, though, that Nest typically installs air-to-water heat pumps rather than air-to-air units, because its focus is whole-home heating and hot water.
Air-to-air heat pumps make no domestic hot water — that is inherent to the technology, not a fault — so a home heated entirely by air-to-air still needs a separate immersion, cylinder or hot-water heat pump. For a low-income household seeking a fully funded, whole-home solution, air-to-water via Nest is often the better fit. If you specifically want air-to-air, the £2,500 BUS grant is your route, subject to the certification point above.
0% VAT applies right across Wales
Separately from any grant, the supply and installation of a permanently fixed air-to-air unit that provides heating carries 0% VAT until 31 March 2027, after which it rises to 5% rather than the standard 20% (HMRC VAT Notice 708/6), as at July 2026. This is a price reduction, not a grant, and it stacks on top of BUS. A cooling-only unit does not qualify — the system must be capable of heating your home.
Who qualifies in Wales — and who should look elsewhere
You are well placed if you own a Welsh home currently heated by electric storage heaters, direct electric radiators, oil, LPG or mains gas, and you are replacing that system rather than keeping it. The government lists eligible existing heating as "oil, gas, electric or LPG", so the widely repeated claim that air-to-air must replace direct-electric heating only is installer folklore, not a rule in the legislation. Air-to-air is best suited to all-electric and storage-heater homes and flats, where running costs fall sharply, but it is not legally restricted to them.
You will not qualify if the property already has a heat pump, if you want to keep a fossil-fuel boiler for space heating as a hybrid, or if it is a new-build (bar eligible self-builds) or social housing. Since 28 April 2026 there is no EPC requirement — a fuel bill and photographs are accepted instead. And if your priority is simply cooling and you intend to keep your existing boiler, be honest with yourself: you would not meet the replacement condition, so the grant is not for you, though 0% VAT still would be.
Your next steps in Wales
If you have read this far and still fit the eligible picture — a Welsh homeowner replacing electric, storage, oil, LPG or gas heating, without an existing heat pump — here is the sensible order to work in.
- Confirm you replace, not supplement. The old system has to go for space heating; air-to-air cannot be a hybrid add-on alongside a boiler you keep.
- Plan for hot water. Budget for a separate immersion, cylinder or hot-water heat pump, since air-to-air heats and cools air only.
- Insist on MCS. Ask any Welsh installer to show current MCS air-to-air certification for both the company and the product, and get the £2,500 shown as an upfront deduction on the quote.
- Check the 0% VAT is applied. The heating unit itself should carry no VAT on supply and installation until 31 March 2027.
- Get matched. Tell us your location in Wales, your current heating and the rooms you want covered, and we will connect you with MCS-certified air-to-air installers — not a single brand of kit.
We are an information hub and matching service, not an installer. If you do not yet qualify, or the certified installer network in your part of Wales is still thin, we will tell you plainly rather than push you into a job that cannot draw down the grant.
Find an MCS-certified air-to-air installer
We aim to reply within one working day
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.
- Independent guide
- gov.uk-sourced facts
- MCS installers only
- No obligation
No obligation and no pushy calls. If air-to-air isn’t right for your home, we’ll tell you straight.