Winter payments glossary

Qualifying week (Winter Fuel Payment and PAWHP)

21 to 27 September 2026. Official amounts and many eligibility tests use your circumstances in this week, not the day a payment later arrives.

Birth-date bands

Official pages split amounts by whether you were born between 28 September 1946 and 27 June 1960, or before 28 September 1946. Eligibility itself requires being born on or before 27 June 1960 (GOV.UK and the live mygov.scot eligibility page). These tools ask for the band, not a date of birth.

Winter Fuel Payment (WFP)

A payment of between £100 and £300 for eligible people who usually live in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, described on GOV.UK. Most eligible people are paid automatically in November or December 2026.

Pension Age Winter Heating Payment (PAWHP)

The official Scottish replacement for Winter Fuel Payment, with published amounts from £105.55 to £316.70 and the same mid-September qualifying week.

Winter Heating Payment (WHP)

A separate official Scottish payment, currently £62.00 on mygov.scot, paid regardless of weather, with a qualifying week of 2 to 8 November 2026.

Warm Home Discount (WHD)

A one-off £150 discount off an electricity bill (not a cash payment) for eligible customers of participating suppliers in Great Britain, using a 23 August 2026 qualifying date for the core tests.

Cold Weather Payment (CWP)

£25 for each official 7-day period when the average temperature in the area is recorded as, or forecast to be, 0°C or below, between 1 November 2026 and 31 March 2027, if you get certain benefits or Support for Mortgage Interest. Not paid in Scotland.

£35,000 income charge

If your total individual income is over £35,000, official pages say HMRC will take a Winter Fuel Payment or Pension Age Winter Heating Payment back. Your partner’s income does not count. Official pages describe a charge equal to the payment, not a taper.

Total income (official checker)

The official income page asks for the total amount of income you expect to receive in the tax year before any deductions. The charge guidance points to total income as defined in section 23 of the Income Tax Act 2007. Use the official HMRC checker rather than a homemade list.

Core group (Warm Home Discount)

In England and Wales, households that meet the official 23 August 2026 supplier, benefit and bill-name tests and are usually paid automatically. Scotland also uses “core group” for automatic cases and “broader group” for people who must apply to their supplier.

Crisis and Resilience Fund

The name used on the official GOV.UK “help from your local council” page for England. Scotland and Wales are pointed to the Scottish Welfare Fund and the Discretionary Assistance Fund. Councils set local rules; this site does not publish local amounts.

Affordable Warmth Scheme

An official Northern Ireland Housing Executive scheme for energy-efficiency measures, pointed to from GOV.UK because Warm Home Discount is not available in Northern Ireland. nidirect publishes tenure and a gross household-income condition of less than £23,000.

Mandatory reconsideration

The official name on GOV.UK for challenging a Winter Fuel Payment claim decision.

For how the calculators apply these terms, see the methodology page and the official sources linked on each tool.