Overview
- The Council of Ministers approved the 2026–2030 national strategy that will require an income test for large families to receive the electricity social discount.
- The change is not immediate and must be implemented by amending Royal Decree 897/2017 through a new royal decree after public consultation and stakeholder input, without a parliamentary vote.
- Officials will meet the Mesa Social de Pobreza Energética and submit the draft to a public hearing before the Council of Ministers adopts the final regulation.
- About 1.7 million households currently receive the bono social, including roughly 460,000 large families, with discounts of 42.5% for vulnerable users and 57.5% for severely vulnerable users maintained this year.
- The strategy also foresees an Energy Poverty Observatory and reinforcement of Red Actua to better identify vulnerable households, and existing beneficiaries are not being cut off automatically.