Heating allowance 2026 in Greece: who gets it, when to apply

The announcement says three things that matter to you. The allowance rises by a flat 30% compared with last winter, for every fuel. The maximum allowance goes from €1,200 to €1,560. And the income and property criteria stay as they were1.

The same announcement gives two examples. A household that would have received €500 will receive €650, and one that received €800 last year will receive €1,040 this year1. It is a simple multiplication by 1.3.

The announcement also says how many people get it. Last winter the allowance reached 1.17 million households, across all fuels. Of the households that heat with oil, about 750,000, almost 6 in 10, are thought to meet the criteria1. So if you think the allowance is only for very low incomes, it is worth checking.

Last year’s rules are joint decision A.1151/2025, published on 31 October 20252. It set a minimum allowance of €100 and three maximum amounts, depending on how cold the area is. With the 30% rise, the amounts for the new winter become:

The coefficient is a number for each area that shows how cold it gets there. The annex of the decision gives the climate coefficient of each area, and the final amount uses the coefficient of the winter itself, which the national weather service, EMY, estimates2. Cold areas have a coefficient above 1. Until the new decision comes out, the calculator on this site takes last year’s amounts and adds the 30%.

The allowance is judged on family income. That is the total declared income of the household, as your tax assessment from the tax office shows it. If you are married, your partner’s income counts together with your own salary. Last year the decision took the figures from the 2024 tax return2. The new decision will say which return counts this year.

The limit changes with the type of household and the number of children2:

Look closely at the single parent. The limit starts at €29,000 with the first child and rises by €5,000 for each child from the second on. So a single parent with two children has the same limit as a couple with two children.

The limit works like a door. You are either in or out. The amount does not shrink gradually as you approach the limit, so a household with €15,900 gets the whole allowance, while one with €16,100 gets nothing. It is harsh on those just above the line, but that is how the criteria are written.

The second limit concerns real estate. What counts here is not the price you would get if you sold your home. It is the value on your ENFIA statement, the document with which you pay the yearly property tax.

For a person living alone the limit is €200,000. For a couple or a single parent it is €260,000, and each child adds €40,0002. If you own a flat and a field in your home village, both count, at their ENFIA values.

Open your latest ENFIA statement and note the total. That is the figure you compare with the limit, and it is the figure the calculator asks for. The ENFIA value is a different number from the asking prices in property ads, so do not judge by eye.

The two limits are not the only rules. Last year’s decision left some groups out, whatever their income2:

• People who are dependants on someone else’s tax return, such as a student child declared by the parents.
• People who declare that they are hosted in someone else’s home.
• People who pay the luxury living tax.
• People with more than two passenger cars, counting shares in co-owned cars. A car with plates handed in voluntarily counts. A car immobilised by order of the authorities does not.
• People with gross business income above €80,000 a year.

The first rule often confuses families with students. A child who studies in another city and is still declared as a dependant by the parents does not apply for the student flat. The child does count as a dependent child in the parents’ household, though, and raises their limit by €5,000.

There is also a rule about the electricity supply of the home. The same electricity supply number is not accepted for more than one beneficiary2. If two adults with separate tax returns live in the same home, only one of them applies for that home.

The decision covers six forms of heating. Heating oil counts together with kerosene and liquid petroleum gas. Then come natural gas, firewood, pellets, district heating and electricity2. Each beneficiary gets the allowance for one kind only, so in the application you choose the one you use most.

Each fuel has its own reference amount, the figure the calculation starts from before the coefficient of the area. Oil has the lowest and electricity the highest. With the 30% rise, oil starts from €390 and electricity from €494, that is the €300 and €380 of last year’s decision times 1.32,1.

Electricity has one difference you should know. The allowance for electricity is judged on the winter bills that the suppliers send in, and last year it was paid at the end of the season2. If you heat with air conditioning or storage heaters, your electricity bill is what counts.

The allowance needs an application every winter. Last year the application was made through the AADE service on myAADE, and it stayed open until 5 December 20252. The person who files the tax return made it, with their Taxisnet login. In a couple with separate returns, one of the two made it.

The application asked for a few details, and all of them had to be right2:

• your tax number, the AFM;
• the electricity supply number of your main home, as the bill shows it;
• the floor area of the main rooms of the home, in square metres;
• the fuel you want the allowance for;
• your dependent children;
• and, if you rent or live there free of charge, the tax number of the owner.

Before the final submission, you had to have declared your bank account in the AADE service for declaring an IBAN2. You can check this now, because that is where the money will go.

For this year, the announcement says the platform is expected to open by 10 November 20261. That is the only application date anyone has given. Where exactly you apply, which details it asks for and how long it stays open will be set by the new decision. If you read an exact deadline anywhere before the decision is out, treat it as a guess. The first place to look is the announcements of AADE3.

You can prepare three things now, whatever the procedure turns out to be. Your Taxisnet login, and make sure it works. Your latest tax assessment, for the family income. And your ENFIA statement, for the property. With these three, the calculator tells you in ten minutes whether you qualify. If you come out just above a limit, check the figures again, because one mistake in a total changes the whole answer.

The allowance is not only for owners. Last year’s decision gave it for your main home, whether you rent it, live in it free of charge or own it2. A tenant also gives the owner’s tax number in the application. The limits are the same for everyone.

The exception is anyone who tells the tax office that they are hosted. They get no allowance, because for the tax office they have no home of their own to heat. If you live in a flat that a parent lets you use, check what your tax return says: a home granted free of charge, or hosting. The difference matters here.

In an apartment block with central heating, the building manager has work to do. Last year the manager declared the details of the building to AADE, the shares of each flat in the heating costs and the names of the residents. You entered your share of the heating costs in your application. The heating oil invoices were issued to the tax number of the building or to your own2. Talk to your building manager early, before the first order.

This is where many people lose money without noticing. The allowance is not a sum that lands in your account whatever you do. It is tied to what you buy.

The rule is simple. Your fuel purchases must be at least twice the allowance. If they are less, the allowance becomes half of your purchases2. So if you are due €600, you need purchases of at least €1,200. If you buy only €800, you get €400.

Last year, purchases counted from 1 October 2025 to 31 March 2026. For heating oil they counted from 15 October, and for firewood and pellets from 1 June 20252. If the period stays the same this year, an oil order before 15 October would not count.

An order without a receipt, to make it a little cheaper, costs you twice. You lose its value from your purchases, and with it you lose half of that value from the allowance. Always ask for an invoice with your tax number, and keep a photo of it.

The exact amount depends on the fuel, the coefficient of your area and your children. With the amounts of the new winter, the allowance starts at €130 and reaches €1,040, €1,300 or €1,560, depending on the coefficient.

To give you an idea: a household with no children, heating with oil at a coefficient of 1, gets about €487.50. The figure comes from the €390 for oil, times the coefficient of 1, plus 25% because the coefficient reaches 1. Each dependent child adds 20%2. Last year, with the same details, the amount was €300 × 1.25 = €375.

These are estimates based on last year’s decision and the 30% rise. The calculation for each fuel and each area is set out in full in the article on the amount.

The announcement gives one payment date. The advance, also 30% higher, is planned by 23 December 20261. An advance means that part of the allowance comes before Christmas, and the rest later, based on what you buy over the winter. Last year the rest was paid by 29 May 20262.

The money goes to the account you declared to AADE. The allowance is free of tax, it does not count as income on your tax return, and it cannot be seized2. If you owe money to a bank or to the tax office, the whole amount still reaches you.

The size of the advance and the dates of the later payments will be set by the new decision. We update the dates as they are announced on the page When the heating allowance is paid, and we explain the December payment in a separate article.