Help With Your Electric Bill in Ohio: Home Energy Assistance Program

Winter Crisis: the state page still shows the last campaign, November 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026 - that window has closed and the 2026-2027 dates are not yet posted. Historically it reopens November 1. The regular HEAP window is not stated on the pages that loaded. Summer Crisis runs in the summer months. Applications take up to 12 weeks to process for both online and mailed filings.

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.

HEAP Winter Crisis Program - for households threatened with disconnection, already disconnected, needing to start or transfer service, or with 25% or less bulk fuel in the tank. Apply through your local Energy Assistance Provider (map at jfs.ohio.gov). Customers of a PUCO-regulated utility must also enrol in PIPP Plus or another payment plan if a balance remains after the benefit. There is also a HEAP Summer Crisis Program for cooling.

Three ways: online through the ODJFS energy assistance portal, by appointment at your local Energy Assistance Provider, or by mail using form JFS 00330 (https://www.odjfs.state.oh.us/forms/num/JFS00330/pdf/). Start at https://jfs.ohio.gov/public-assistance/energy-and-community-assistance/apply-for-ohio-energy-assistance-programs. Sign the application - an unsigned one is delayed.

Regular HEAP is a once-yearly payment applied directly to the heating or cooling bill. The dollar amount is not stated on the pages read.

Proof of income for every household member (SSI, SSDI, Social Security, pension, alimony, wages, self-employment, unemployment); copies of your most recent utility bills; a list of everyone in the household with Social Security numbers and dates of birth; proof of US citizenship or legal residency for all members. Online applicants need scans or photos of these.

No blanket winter moratorium. Ohio uses the PUCO Special Reconnect Order (also called the Winter Reconnect Order): one heating season, any residential customer of a PUCO-regulated electric or gas utility - no income test - can pay $175 to reconnect, avoid disconnection, or start new service, whatever the balance owed. Reconnection fee capped at $36 up front. The 2025-2026 order ran October 13, 2025 to April 15, 2026; PUCO reissues it each year around mid-September, so the 2026-2027 order was not yet posted on the day checked. Contact your utility to use it.

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

The program moved from development.ohio.gov to jfs.ohio.gov on April 6, 2026 and several old Development URLs now only carry a redirect notice. Both the Winter Crisis window and the PUCO reconnect order shown on state pages are last season's; the new season's dates were not published as of 10 September 2026.

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