Energy check: the 5.6 million beneficiaries will start receiving their aid from Tuesday

A welcome boost. Around 5.6 million low-income households will gradually receive their energy check for the year 2024 from Tuesday and throughout the month of April, the government announced on Saturday. From Tuesday April 2, “nearly 5.6 million low-income households in France will receive the energy check without any prior action”, at their home, the Ministry of Economy and Finance said on Saturday, specifying that shipments will be spread out until April 25 depending on the department of residence.

Distributed since 2018, the energy check helps low-income households pay their energy bills (electricity, gas, heat), wood or oil heating, LPG), and certain energy work. And this in a context of a new increase in electricity prices of 10% in February as part of the gradual exit from the tariff shield. Its annual amount varies between 48 euros and 277 euros, calculated according to the 2021 reference tax income and the composition of the household. According to the ministry, this aid will concern “20% of the lowest-income French households”.

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It can be used until March 31, 2025 to pay for heating charges included in the rents of certain collective housing (homes, retirement homes, long-term care establishments, etc.) and, new this year, also “for the payment of rental charges including energy costs” in social housing, specifies Bercy. Concretely, beneficiaries can pay their bill directly to the supplier with the energy check, or request that the aid be taken into account automatically the following year as a deduction from the bill.

Around 82.2% of beneficiaries for the year 2023 had used their energy check, according to provisional data as of March 26, 2024 which will be refined in the summer. The ministry specifies that “an online system will be put in place by this summer to allow households” who have not received their 2024 check by the end of April, “to make a complaint if they believe be eligible”.

At the start of the year, several family associations (CLCV, Afoc, Rural Families, Cnafal, UFC, Unaf) expressed their fears of seeing a million beneficiaries excluded from the system “even though they meet the criteria to obtain it ". In question: the abolition of the housing tax makes it more difficult to identify housing. New households, students for example, or those whose income has fallen may therefore not receive the check. “All those who are entitled to the energy check” in 2024 will receive it, assured the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire at the beginning of February.