Winter Eviction Moratorium: What Is Prohibited from November 1 to March 31 and the Protection Gap No One Explains

A letter arrives in October, announcing an electricity cut for non-payment. On 1^st November, the cut becomes illegal. Many households deduce that they are protected for five months and that nothing will happen until spring. This is false, and the gap between what people believe and what the law actually provides comes down to three words: power can be reduced.

The 2026-2027 winter moratorium runs from 1^st November 2026 to 31 March 2027. It prohibits electricity, gas, and heat disconnections for non-payment in a primary residence, and it suspends eviction proceedings. It does not prohibit reducing a dwelling to 1 kilovolt-ampere, i.e., 1,000 watts available to run a fridge, a router, and a few lights, but not a cooking plate.

There is an exemption to this reduction, and that is the core of this dossier: households that receive the energy cheque are exempt, but only if they have forwarded their attestation to their supplier. A right that exists and that does not automatically apply the most expensive configuration for a household in difficulty. This piece picks up where we left off in the comparison of the real cost of heating energies: once you know how heating costs, the question remains what happens when you can no longer pay.

What the moratorium actually prohibits

Protection is enshrined in the Energy Code for energy matters and in the Code of Civil Procedure for housing. It is narrower than its reputation.

Two clarifications matter. The protection covers the primary residence: a secondary home, a professional premises, or an empty dwelling are not covered. And it covers the unpaid bills: a cut for electrical danger, for network works, or at the customer’s request remains possible in the middle of winter, because it does not fall under the same mechanism.

On the housing front, eviction suspensions are often poorly understood. An eviction ruling can be issued during the moratorium, the procedure can progress, the deadlines run. What is suspended is the execution at the moment a judicial officer, and him alone, ejects the occupant. By 1st April, the files accumulated during the five months resume their course in a few weeks.

The power reduction, the gap in protection

That’s the point other pages gloss over in one line. During the moratorium, a supplier that is not paid can ask the network manager to reduce the power subscribed to the dwelling, down to a minimum of 1 kVA. The meter isn’t cut. The current passes. But it passes up to 1,000 watts, and beyond that the circuit breaker trips.

Here is what 1,000 watts actually allow, device by device, in active power.

The combined base loads—fridge, lighting, box, TV—fit within about 270 watts of the 1,000 available. The remaining margin is for a single large appliance at a time, and not for the heaviest ones. A dwelling heated by electricity is no longer heated. A dwelling equipped with an electric water heater has no hot water, unless everything is turned off during heating. The kitchen is cooked with the microwave, or not at all.

In short, power reduction is not a half-measure: in a fully electric home, it produces roughly the same comfort loss as a cut, while staying legally permissible. It is this mismatch that deserves to be known before receiving the letter, not after.

A technical nuance matters. Remote reduction requires a smart meter. On installations with an old meter, the operation is not feasible without intervention, and since a cut is prohibited, the situation often remains as is until 1st April. Two households with identical late payments can thus spend the winter in very different conditions depending on the equipment installed on their landing. If your consumption seems hard to track, our dossier on connected thermostats details the items that weigh most on a heating bill.

The energy voucher, and the attestation that almost no one sends

Households benefiting from the energy voucher escape the power reduction during the moratorium. Protection is not automatic: it activates when the supplier knows the client is a beneficiary. Concretely, you must send them the attestation attached to the voucher, or the eligibility justification, by the channel they indicate—customer space, email, or mail.

A household that has received its voucher, used it to pay a bill, and discarded the rest of the mail ends up with a right they cannot prove. The supplier then applies the ordinary procedure. The process takes ten minutes and is worth five months of normal power: likely the best effort-to-result ratio in this whole dossier.

Voucher amounts range from €48 to €277 depending on the reference taxable income per consumption unit and the household composition. Three calendar points to remember for the current campaign:

The voucher is no longer automatically sent to all eligible households as it was in the early years. A portion of beneficiaries must apply, and that is where the program loses participants. A household that has received nothing and thinks it is not eligible would do well to check their eligibility rather than assume it.

Water, never cut, in any season

Water follows its own regime, and is more protective than energy. Water disconnection for non-payment in a primary residence is prohibited all year round, not just during the moratorium. The flow reduction is also prohibited: the Court of Cassation ruled in 2018 that the distributor cannot cut or limit water supply for a good-faith occupant.

It is not leniency, it is a prohibition. A distributor who cuts water risks conviction, and court rulings to that effect are numerous. An occupant who suffers a water cut for non-payment can request restoration in a référé, i.e., urgent, with delays of a few days.

The debt, however, remains due. The prohibition concerns the pressure tactic, not the debt: the distributor retains all traditional collection avenues—formal notice, injunction to pay, seizure.

What the moratorium does not do: the debt keeps accruing

The moratorium suspends an act; it does not erase anything. Bills continue to arrive, winter consumption adds to the arrears, and late payment penalties provided by the contract may apply. And the supplier retains during these five months all of its collection tools: reminders, formal notices, use of a debt-collection agency, court action.

The practical consequence is unpleasant but must be stated: a household that goes through the moratorium without negotiating anything ends up on 1st April with a debt higher than on 1st November, and with a supplier free to cut again. Gas and electricity disconnections resume from April, and this is historically the period when they are the most numerous.

The five months of the moratorium should therefore be used, not awaited. Three actions have a real effect on what comes next:

Request a written payment schedule from the supplier. A debt-payoff plan spread over six, twelve, or twenty-four months is very generally granted, because a creditor prefers a slow payment to a definitive non-payment. The written document counts: it provides proof of good faith, a concept that recurs in all court decisions on the subject.

Contact social services and apply for the Housing Solidarity Fund (FSL). The FSL is department-specific; it can cover all or part of an unpaid energy bill, and the file is built with a social worker, the local CCAS, or, in some departments, the CAF. A submitted FSL request has an immediate effect: the supplier informed of it must suspend its procedure while the inquiry is processed, within the limits set by regulations.

Have your contracted power and tariff option checked. A portion of unmanageable bills comes from an oversized subscription or a poorly chosen option rather than overconsumption. We quantified these gaps in our comparison of Base, Off-peak Hours, and Tempo options: for some profiles, simply changing the option saves several tens of euros per year, without changing habits. In the same vein as free levers, the Voltalis load-shedding program reduces the electric heating bill without investment and without measurable loss of comfort, making it worth considering when cash flow allows nothing else.

Outside the moratorium, the step-by-step graduated procedure

From 1st April to 31 October, disconnection becomes possible again, but not overnight. The Energy Code imposes a sequence, and it is a sequence that gives time to those who know where they stand.

For households identified as being in energy poverty, the procedure is strengthened: the reduced-power period rises to sixty days minimum, and the disconnection cannot occur until after an additional notice of at least twenty days. Between the first reminder and the effective disconnection, on a correctly processed file, almost three months elapse.

This calendar has a practical utility: it tells a late payer household how much time they have left. A reminder letter is not an imminent disconnection, and the common mistake is to react only at stage 3, when the breaker has already been bridled, rather than at stage 1, when a payment plan can still be obtained without difficulty.

Recourse, in order

If a cut or a reduction is applied when it should not have been, the order of steps changes everything. Going straight to court wastes weeks; going through the proper steps often restores power in a matter of days.

1. Call the supplier, then confirm in writing. The call is to correct a material error, an unrecorded payment, a contested bill, an energy cheque attestation received but not accounted for. The written document, whether a registered letter or a message via the customer space, is used to date the claim. It is this document that opens the subsequent remedies.

2. Submit a complaint to the National Energy Ombudsman. The complaint is free, done online, and becomes admissible two months after a written complaint that has not received a satisfactory response. The ombudsman is an independent public authority, not a supplier’s service, and its recommendations are followed in the vast majority of cases.

3. Go through social services. A social worker, a CCAS, or a medical-social center has a dedicated contact at large suppliers, a channel that unlocks situations a private individual cannot resolve. It is also the entry point for the FSL.

4. Go to court, in a fast-track (référé) procedure. The emergency procedure allows restoration under injunction. There are precedents: the Versailles Court of Appeal granted €1,500 in damages to a subscriber whose electricity had not been restored after paying their debt. Restoration after regularization must be rapid—the delay bears responsibility on the supplier.

What’s not protected, and what you should know beforehand

The moratorium has blind spots, and they are rarely listed.

Telephone and internet. No moratorium, no winter protection, no equivalent staged procedure. A provider can suspend a line for non-payment in December as in July. For a household isolated, that can be the heaviest consequence, as it removes access to online démarches at the exact moment when they are needed.

The occupants without rights or title. The eviction suspension does not apply to people who entered a dwelling by force. The legal distinction is clear, and confusion on this point leads to bad decisions.

Homes that are not the primary residence. Secondary residences, unoccupied dwellings, or professional premises: disconnection for non-payment remains possible year-round.

Bottled gas and heating oil. There is nothing to cut since these are cash purchases: the supplier simply refuses delivery. A household heated with heating oil in financial distress has no winter protection, and it’s one of the most exposed groups; the energy voucher covers this fuel, which makes it the only directly usable aid in this scenario.

Finally, a less legal blind spot: fraudulent calls and messages proliferate around these situations, with fake “unpaid” service advisers demanding immediate payment via a bank transfer link. A supplier never asks for payment via a link received by SMS. We detailed the mechanism in our dossier on SMS scams, and the rule is the same: hang up, then call the number shown on the invoice.

Frequently asked questions

What are the exact dates of the 2026-2027 winter moratorium?

From 1^st November 2026 to 31 March 2027 inclusive. During this period, electricity, gas, and heat disconnections for non-payment are banned in a primary residence, and evictions are suspended. Disconnections rejoin possible from 1^st April 2027.

Can my power be reduced during the winter moratorium?

Yes. Disconnection is prohibited, not the reduction of power, which can drop to 1 kVA. Energy voucher beneficiaries are exempt, provided they have transmitted their attestation to their supplier. Without this transmission, the protection does not apply.

What can run on 1 kVA?

A refrigerator, lighting, a broadband box, and a television together use about 270 watts. Beyond that, only one large appliance at a time, and not the heaviest: kettle, cooking hob, oven, washing machine, and electric water heater each exceed 2,000 watts and will trip the breaker.

Can water be cut for an unpaid bill?

No, at any time of the year. Water disconnection as well as flow reduction are prohibited in a primary residence for a good-faith occupant, as confirmed by the Court of Cassation in 2018. The debt remains due and recoverable by ordinary channels, but supply must be maintained.

Does the winter moratorium cancel my energy debt?

No. It suspends disconnection, not the debt. Bills continue to accrue, late penalties may apply, and the supplier retains all collection tools. A debt not negotiated during winter is higher on 1st April, the date when disconnection becomes possible again.

Who should I contact in case of abusive disconnection?

First the supplier, in writing to date the claim. Two months later without a satisfactory response, the National Energy Ombudsman, free and online. In parallel, social services or the CCAS, which have a dedicated contact at suppliers and process requests for the Housing Solidarity Fund.

What to take away

The winter moratorium protects in reality, but less widely than people think. It shields from disconnection, not from power reduction, and in a fully electric home, 1 kVA has roughly the effects of a cut. The dividing line hinges on an exemption that many beneficiaries do not know exists, and which requires sending an attestation in about ten minutes.

Three actions cover the topic. Send your energy cheque attestation to your supplier if you receive one. Request a written payment schedule before 1^st April, because the moratorium is a deadline to use and not a parenthesis. And knock on the doors of social services for the FSL, which settles bills that no one else settles.

A remaining caveat. The mechanism rests on exemptions you must activate yourself at a time of year when households have the fewest administrative resources to do so. It’s hard to see why a supplier, which knows its customers on the social tariff and receives energy cheques paid on its own invoices, would need a paper to know to whom the protection applies. It is a burden that costs a winter for those who do not know it.