Date Legislation considered: 27 November 2025
Date Legislation in force: 15 September 2025
Relevant Withdrawal Agreement/EEA EFTA Separation Agreement Right(s): Article 30 of Title III of Withdrawal Agreement, Article 29 of Title III of EEA EFTA Separation Agreement, The above cover social security coordination
What does the legislation do?
The Social Fund Winter Fuel Payment Regulations 2025 (the “2025 Regulations”) introduce changes to Winter Fuel Payments (‘WFP’) in England and Wales. These Regulations implement the first part of the Winter Fuel Payment policy to provide for universal entitlement to a WFP for 2025-26 to persons of a pensionable age who are ordinarily resident in the qualifying week. The amount of WFP varies dependent on the age of a person and whether they are in receipt of a relevant benefit. For the purposes of the 2025 Regulations, the qualifying week is the week commencing 15 September 2025. The WFP for automated claims may be made on or before 31 March following the qualifying week. For manual claims there is an application deadline of 31 March 2026.
The second part of the WFP policy will be implemented in the Finance Bill, expected later this year; this will operate to recover a benefit through the tax system where a person is not in receipt of a relevant benefit and has a taxable income over £35k.
WFP is payable to all eligible citizens who meet the residence requirement. The IMA does not have any concerns about how the Regulations apply to EU and EEA EFTA Pensioners who reside in England and Wales in accordance with Title II of the Withdrawal Agreements and who have obtained a grant of status under the EUSS.
Unlike the Social fund Winter Fuel Payment Regulations 2024 (the “2024 Regulations”), and previous regulations, the 2025 Regulations no longer permit the WFP to be payable to EU and EEA EFTA pensioners in scope of Title III of the Withdrawal Agreements who are living in certain EEA countries and Switzerland The 2024 Regulations followed previous domestic practice, where EEA countries with an average winter temperature higher than the warmest region in the UK were excluded.
For Winter 2024/25, WFP was payable abroad to eligible claimants who received a benefit equivalent to Pension Credit, or other relevant benefits, from the country they lived in.
Comments
The IMA did not raise any concerns in respect of the 2024 Regulations as payments continued to be made to eligible citizens in the EEA. IMA Officials did however make enquiries with the Department for Work and Pensions (“DWP”) in respect of future policy on the payment of the benefit abroad under Title III of the Agreements. Officials were told that following the expiry of the 2024 Regulations, DWP would review how, in future, they would classify WFP under the social security coordination rules, which continue to apply via the Withdrawal Agreements, and that a more detailed response would be provided to the IMA once the necessary legislation and operational guidance had been finalised.
The IMA were not notified of the changes ahead of the 2025 Regulations being made. Whilst the IMA accepts that reform of benefits is a matter for the UK Government, the IMA continues to discuss with DWP how they classify WFP under the social security coordination rules.
The DWP have assured the IMA that they are undertaking a detailed analysis of the changes introduced by the 2025 Regulations and that this includes consideration of the appropriate classification under the social security coordination rules. The IMA will continue to engage with the DWP as part of its wider compliance work.
Any citizen experiencing difficulties in exercising their rights is encouraged to report a complaint through the IMA Portal.
Further information about the IMA and guidance on how to report complaints can also be found on the Website.