Brit pensioners in the Costa Del Sol CAN'T claim winter fuel cash despite viral social media post

Pensioners living on the sunny Costa Del Sol are not claiming cash from the UK's Winter Fuel Payment budget, in contrast to a popular social media post.

The post on X (Twitter), which has been shared nearly 8,000 times, links a news story about Brits living abroad and claiming winter fuel cash to 'pensioners on the Costa Del Sol'.

While there are countries in which people living abroad have been able to claim fuel payments, Spain is not one of them.

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Chancellor Rachel Reeves caused fury when she announced the universal WFP, worth up to £300, will be mean-tested. The cut affects around nine million pensioners across the UK.

Nearly 35,000 people who receive a this payment live abroad, new figures show. Most of the pensioners in this category reside in Ireland, with a much smaller number based in Germany.

People in most European Economic Area (EEA) countries are able to claim winter fuel payments if they have a “genuine and sufficient link” to the UK and fulfil some other criteria.

People in all EEA countries could previously claim the payment, but in 2015 the Government excluded some warmer European countries and territories. The countries excluded were Cyprus, France, Gibraltar, Greece, Malta, Portugal and Spain. They were chosen because their average winter temperatures are higher than the warmest region of the UK.

Since then, pensioners on the Costa del Sol have not been entitled to the payments.

Before the recent update, the eligibility criteria were that people needed to have moved to an eligible country before January 1 2021, be born before September 23 1958 and have a “genuine and sufficient link to