Quick answer
It closed. DCMS stopped accepting applications from new and returning applicants on 31 March 2026, the 2025-26 budget was fully allocated, outstanding decisions were issued by 15 April 2026, and the government confirmed there would be no further funding rounds. In England it is replaced by the Places of Worship Renewal Fund (£92m over four years, delivered by Historic England), which targets repair and maintenance rather than energy projects. For solar specifically the closure matters less than it sounds: installing solar is zero-rated for VAT until 31 March 2027 in a building used solely for a relevant charitable purpose, so there is no 20% to reclaim.
Full answer
The scheme ran from 2001, funded directly by HM Treasury, and was created to address the anomaly that listed places of worship paid full 20% VAT on repair works while comparable new build did not. It reimbursed VAT after the event on a claim to DCMS. On 22 January 2026 the government announced it would close permanently, and it stopped accepting applications from new and returning applicants on 31 March 2026. All awards within the £23 million budget for 2025-26 were allocated, any outstanding decisions were issued by 15 April 2026, and there will be no further funding rounds.
What replaced it, in England only, is the Places of Worship Renewal Fund: £92 million over four years, funded by DCMS and delivered by Historic England, aimed at the repair and maintenance of the places of worship most at need. Read the criteria before you budget against it — as published they do not mention energy efficiency, decarbonisation or solar, so a PV project should not be assumed eligible. Across the whole UK the National Lottery Heritage Fund remains open to places of worship for heritage projects.
For a solar project, the important point is that you were probably not going to use this scheme anyway. Since 1 February 2024 installing solar has been an installation of energy-saving materials zero-rated for VAT in buildings used solely for a relevant charitable purpose, which is how a place of worship held by a charity normally qualifies. The relief runs to 31 March 2027, after which the rate becomes 5%. A parish paying 0% has no VAT to reclaim, so a funding stack showing both a zero rate and an LPW rebate is counting the same saving twice and one half of it no longer exists.
Where the closure genuinely hurts is repairs. Re-roofing, masonry, rainwater goods and organ work are not energy-saving materials, so they carry standard-rate VAT with no reimbursement route in England beyond whatever the new fund covers. If you are re-covering a roof slope and adding panels in the same contract, ask for the repair and the solar installation to be priced separately: they carry different VAT rates, and a single figure makes it impossible to check that the relief has been applied at all.
Related questions
- Do churches pay VAT on solar panels?
- What replaced the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme?
- What other grants exist for listed churches?
- Are church roof repairs zero-rated too?