Help With Your Electric Bill in North Carolina: LIHEAP

LIEAP is a short, two-stage winter window and it has NOT opened yet on 10 September 2026. Households that include someone aged 60 or older, or an individual receiving disability benefits and services through the NC Division of Aging and Adult Services, may sign up December 1-31. Everyone else applies January 1 through March 31, or until funds are exhausted — whichever comes first. CIP is different: applications are taken each year from July 1 to June 30 of the following year, or until the CIP allocation is exhausted, so crisis help IS available today.

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 Intervention Program (CIP), open July 1 to June 30 and until the allocation runs out. A household is in crisis if it is experiencing, or in danger of experiencing, a life-threatening or health-related emergency and no other timely help is available. 'Life-threatening' means no heating or cooling source, or a disconnect notice for the primary heating or cooling service, where a household member's health or well-being would be in danger. Important detail: disconnect notices are NOT required at this time — a final notice or a past-due bill plus a health-related or life-threatening emergency can be enough. Apply by mail, email, fax or drop-off at your local DSS, or online via ePASS. Each household is judged case by case.

Online through NCDHHS ePASS, or through your county Department of Social Services. CIP applications can be sent by mail, email, fax or dropped off at the local DSS; a face-to-face interview is not required at present. Contact your local DSS for the exact application dates in your county.

Two different income tests. LIEAP: income levels based on 130% of the federal poverty level. CIP: income levels based on 150% of the federal poverty level — so a household too well off for the heating grant can still get crisis help. Both require at least one U.S. citizen or a non-citizen meeting the eligibility criteria. LIEAP also verifies identity, address, Social Security number, earned and unearned income, assets and resources, and the heating expense. The dollar tables are published as a chart linked from each program page rather than in the page text.

LIEAP is a one-time vendor payment toward the heating bill. CIP pays what is needed to alleviate the crisis, against a utility statement showing the amount owed. Neither dollar figure is stated on the state pages.

Identity (ID, or contact with someone who knows your situation); address (lease, rental agreement or other shelter expense); verification of citizenship or alien status; a valid Social Security card or number; earned income (wage stubs, tax forms, employer contact); unearned income (award letters, provider documents); assets and resources (ownership and tax records, bank and court documents); and copies of the heating bills. For CIP, a utility statement showing how much is owed to end the crisis.

November 1 through March 31, utility companies cannot disconnect service to a household that meets ALL THREE conditions: it includes someone who is disabled or aged 65 or older; it is unable to pay under an installment plan; and it is certified by a local social services agency as eligible for assistance under an energy assistance program. Electric and gas companies must also keep a list of households with special medical needs, such as life-support equipment, and any customer may nominate a second person to receive copies of termination notices. Source: NC Department of Justice, ncdoj.gov/protecting-consumers/energy-and-utilities/termination-of-utility-service/; rules are set by the NC Utilities Commission (ncuc.gov).

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

The elderly and disabled get a full month's head start on LIEAP — 1-31 December — before it opens to everyone else. That head start matters because the program closes when funds run out, not on a fixed date. The shut-off protection is triple-conditioned; being low income alone does not stop a disconnection in North Carolina.

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