Help With Your Electric Bill in District of Columbia: LIHEAP

CLOSED RIGHT NOW. The DOEE page carries a standing notice: 'DOEE is no longer accepting new LIHEAP or UDP applications. The LIHEAP program is now closed for the current fiscal year,' and tells residents to watch the page for updates as the new fiscal year begins October 1, 2026. So FY26 (Oct 1, 2025 - Sep 30, 2026) is finished and FY27 opens on October 1, 2026. DOEE does not publish a firm reopening date beyond that, nor a closing date for the new year - the FY26 year closed early when the money ran out.

Dates move every year and most states stop taking applications when the money runs out, not on the closing date. Checked Sep 10, 2026 — confirm before you count on it.

Crisis/Emergency Benefit. DOEE counts a household as in crisis when it faces immediate loss of home energy: an outstanding arrearage of $250 or more after the regular LIHEAP benefit is applied, AND either service already disconnected or a deliverable fuel tank at 5% or less. For electric or gas you must bring documentation from PEPCO and/or Washington Gas stating that service has been disconnected. Book through 311 at an Energy Center - the same appointment route as regular help, and subject to the same closure. Note the wording: the DC crisis benefit is built around service already cut off, not a disconnection notice.

Online application through DOEE, by mail, or in person by appointment. Mail to: Department of Energy & Environment, Attn: Utility Affordability Administration, 1200 First Street NE, 5th Floor, Washington DC 20002. In person: call 311 to book at an Energy Center - 1207 Taylor Street NW (wards 1-6) or 2100 Martin Luther King Jr Avenue SE (wards 6-8). Appointments are required; walk-ins are not accepted. NOTICE on the page: neither centre was scheduling in-person appointments for FY2026. Warning from DOEE: it is the SOLE body allowed to accept LIHEAP applications - do not hand your application to a utility or any other agency.

FY26 income thresholds published by DOEE (annual household income): 1 person $61,841; 2 $80,869; 3 $99,897; 4 $118,926; 5 $137,954; 6 $156,982; 7 $160,550; 8 $164,117; 9 $167,685; 10 $171,253. FY27 figures are not published yet.

$250 to $1,800 as a one-time regular energy assistance benefit, based on household size, total household income, heating source and type of dwelling.

Unexpired government photo ID for the applicant; recent Washington Gas, PEPCO and DC Water bills; proof of current income for every household member; Social Security cards for every household member; and, for emergency help, the disconnection notice or a letter from the utility stating service has been disconnected.

No calendar winter moratorium in DC law. The protection is temperature-based: DC Code section 34-1506.01 bars an electric company from disconnecting residential service on the day before and the day of a National Weather Service forecast for the District of 95F or above, or 32F or below, at any time of day; if that forecast falls before a holiday or weekend, no disconnection on any day of that holiday or weekend. The same protection applies to natural gas. Separately, DCMR title 15 section 311 requires a utility to postpone disconnection up to 21 days on a physician's certificate or public health official's notice if the customer enters a deferred payment agreement, and bars disconnection between 5pm Thursday and 8am Monday and on holidays.

This comes from the District of Columbia utility commission, not from the energy assistance programme — they are different offices and only one of them publishes it.

This is the one state-level programme in this batch that is shut today, and the closure is the headline: anyone sent to the DC page right now can only be told to come back on October 1, 2026. The FY26 income table and the $250-$1,800 benefit range should be treated as last year's numbers until DOEE republishes. LIHEAP and UDP share one application, and UDP renewal is done in September each year.

In most states the same office runs SNAP food benefits, and receiving one often makes the other automatic or faster. SNAP in District of Columbia →