900,000 potential beneficiaries have not claimed it, but it is not too late

ECONOMY – Time is running out. As France Inter revealed mid-week, 900,000 people have not yet applied for an energy check even though they are beneficiaries. They only have until December 31, 2024, next Tuesday, to come forward. “The process only takes five minutes”promises the Minister of Ecological Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher.

In total in France, 5.6 million people are eligible for the energy check. Distributed automatically since 2018 in the spring, it helps low-income households pay their energy bills (electricity, gas, heat, wood or oil heating, LPG), and certain energy work.

Except that this year, the associations alerted the government when a million people risked finding themselves excluded from the system due to the elimination of the housing tax which makes it more difficult to identify housing. New households, of students for example, or those whose income has fallen, therefore risked not receiving the check.

Between 48 and 277 euros

The then Ministry of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, had promised to set up a counter for making complaints. Which was done, but only 100,000 people came forward. There are therefore 900,000 beneficiaries, who perhaps do not know that they are eligible, who have not taken the steps to receive the aid.

To make your request, simply go to the site: https://chequeenergie2024.asp-public.fr. You have until December 31 to complete the process and be careful: contacted by France bleu, Bercy indicates that “ to date, a postponement is not envisaged.”

The ministry specifies that a communication campaign by email and SMS is underway to try to contact as many people as possible. However, it alerts on “an upsurge in fraudulent calls” and calls to be “very vigilant if you receive a phone call. User Support will never contact you to ask for your bank details.”

The annual amount of the check varies between 48 euros and 277 euros, calculated according to the reference tax income for 2022 and the composition of the household. A single person must have a reference tax income of less than 11,000 euros in 2024 to benefit from it. It's 16,500 euros for a couple, 19,800 euros for a couple with one child and 23,100 euros for a couple with two children.

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