If your income is over £35,000 a year, you will be paid your Winter Fuel Payment – but you’ll then need to pay it back through the tax system
Pensioner households will have to repay their Winter Fuel Payment if they earn over a certain amount, after new rules were introduced this year.
Winter Fuel Payments are worth up to £300 and are paid to pensioners who were born before September 22, 1959. However, if your income is over £35,000 a year, you will be paid your Winter Fuel Payment – but you’ll then need to pay it back through the tax system.
For most people, the money will be automatically recovered through PAYE, by HMRC changing your tax code. This normally means you will pay it back in a small amount every month when you pay tax.
For a typical Winter Fuel Payment of £200, HMRC will deduct around £17 a month in the 2026/27 tax year. However, this will rise to around £33 a month for a £200 Winter Fuel Payment in the 2027/28 tax.
This is because HMRC will collect payments from 2026 and 2027. It will then return to around £17 a month for the 2028/29 tax year. You can also pay your Winter Fuel Payment back through self-assessment.
It is important to remember that the £35,000 income eligibility is based on your individual income – so it may be that one person in your household gets to keep their share of the Winter Fuel Payment, while someone else has to pay their bit back.
For example, if one person earns £40,000 a year and their partner earns £30,000, the higher earner would have to pay back their share of the Winter Fuel Payment but the other person would keep theirs.
It is estimated that two million pensioners may have to repay their Winter Fuel Payment. You can choose to opt out of getting your Winter Fuel Payment but the deadline for this was September 15, 2025.
Winter Fuel Payments are issued by the Department for Work and Pensions ( DWP ) and most people will receive the cash automatically in November or December.
The payments are worth £200 for eligible households, or £300 for eligible households with someone aged over 80. Your eligibility will be based on your age by the end of the qualifying week.
The qualifying week for this year is September 15 to 21, 2025.. If you receive one of the following benefits, then you will be sent your Winter Fuel Payment automatically:
- State Pension
- Pension Credit
- Universal Credit
- Attendance Allowance
- Personal Independence Payment (PIP)
- Carer’s Allowance
- Disability Living Allowance (DLA)
- Income Support
- income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
- Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)
- Awards from the War Pensions Scheme
- Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit
- Incapacity Benefit
- Industrial Death Benefit
If you do not claim any of these benefit, then you will need to claim your Winter Fuel Payment if either of the following apply:
- You’ve not had the Winter Fuel Payment before
- You’ve deferred your State Pension since your last Winter Fuel Payment
You won’t be eligible if you were in hospital getting free treatment for the whole of the qualifying week, and the year before that, or if you were in prison during the qualifying week.
You also weren’t eligible if you lived in a care home for the whole time from June 23, 2025 or earlier and you claim certain benefits including Universal Credit and Pension Credit.
In Scotland, the Winter Fuel Payment has been replaced with a new Pension Age Winter Heating Payment.
