Help With Your Electric Bill in Indiana: Energy Assistance Program

Closed right now. The PY2026 season's last day was April 20, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. Eastern. IHCDA says only that the portal 'will reopen in Fall of 2026' - no reopening date has been published, so there is no date to give someone yet. Second-crisis and summer applications are also not being taken.

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.

There is no separate crisis application: the EAP benefit itself covers households already disconnected or about to be. If you get a disconnection notice for a metered utility, are within 10 days of running out of bulk fuel, or have already been cut off or run out of fuel, notify your Local Service Provider immediately. Also call your utility straight away to try to arrange a payment plan, or dial 2-1-1 for other local resources. With the portal closed until autumn, the utility payment plan and 2-1-1 are the realistic routes today.

Online through the IHCDA EAP application portal at https://www.in.gov/ihcda/homeowners-and-renters/low-income-home-energy-assistance-program-liheap, or with help from your Local Service Provider (community action agency). Note the timing: an LSP may take 55 days to decide eligibility, plus around 30 days for the utility to post the credit, and up to 120 days if you are paid directly. Keep paying your bills in the meantime.

One annual benefit, paid straight to the utility vendor. IHCDA is explicit that it will not cover a year of heating and electric costs, so keep paying your bills.

Proof of income; current utility bills or account statements; a Tenant Verification Statement or current lease if utilities are included in your rent. The Local Service Provider may ask for more depending on your circumstances.

Moratorium under Indiana Code 8-1-2-121: from December 1 through March 15 of any year a utility may not turn off residential service to a customer who is eligible for and HAS APPLIED FOR the Energy Assistance Program. Crucially, the protection starts when you submit the application, not when you are approved - it exists to give the Local Service Provider time to decide. Tell your utility that you have applied if you are scheduled for disconnection. It covers electric and gas utilities that are municipally owned, privately owned or cooperatively owned.

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

Indiana's moratorium is tied to the application, not to being approved - filing is what buys you the protection, so file before December if you can.

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