Common UK tax questions — UK Tax Calculator

Enter your gross salary and the calculator shows your take-home pay per year, month, week, or day, after income tax, National Insurance, pension, and any student-loan deductions. For example, on a £35,000 salary in England in 2026/27 you keep roughly £28,700 a year (about £2,393 a month) before any pension. Your exact figure depends on your tax code, region, pension, and student-loan plan — add those details to see your real number.

For England, Wales, and Northern Ireland in 2026/27 the Personal Allowance is £12,570 (tax-free), then 20% basic rate up to £50,270, 40% higher rate up to £125,140, and 45% additional rate above that. The Personal Allowance is tapered away by £1 for every £2 you earn over £100,000, which creates an effective 60% marginal rate between £100,000 and £125,140. Scotland has its own bands (starter, basic, intermediate, higher, advanced, and top rates).

1257L is the most common UK tax code for 2026/27 and means you get the standard £12,570 tax-free Personal Allowance, spread evenly across the year. The number is the allowance divided by 10; the letter L means you're entitled to the standard allowance. A different code (for example a K code, BR, or D0) changes how much is taxed — enter your code in the calculator to apply it exactly.

An emergency tax code is a temporary code — usually 1257L with a W1, M1 or X suffix — used when HMRC doesn't yet have your full employment history, most often when you start a new job without a P45. It still gives the standard £12,570 Personal Allowance for 2026/27, but on a non-cumulative basis so each pay period is taxed in isolation, which can mean over-paying tax. It normally clears in a few weeks once HMRC has your details from your P45 or starter checklist, and any over-payment is refunded automatically through PAYE.

Not because it's a second job — UK income tax rates and bands apply to your TOTAL income, so the marginal rate on the second job is the same as if you'd earned that extra pay at the first. What differs is the code: HMRC typically puts the second job on BR (all pay taxed at 20%) because your main job already uses the £12,570 Personal Allowance. National Insurance is worked out per job, so on two smaller jobs you can pay less NI overall than on one bigger job of the same total. If your combined income pushes into the higher-rate band, HMRC catches up via a P800 reconciliation or a code change.

Between £100,000 and £125,140 of income you lose £1 of your tax-free Personal Allowance for every £2 you earn, so that slice of income is effectively taxed at 60% (40% higher-rate tax plus the 40% tax on the £1 of allowance you lose for every £2). Earners over £100,000 in England also lose access to 15–30 funded childcare hours and tax-free childcare. Paying the excess into a pension by salary sacrifice can bring your adjusted income back under £100,000 and reclaim both the allowance and the childcare support.

With salary sacrifice you give up part of your gross salary in exchange for an equivalent employer pension contribution, so you pay neither income tax nor employee National Insurance on the sacrificed amount. A higher-rate taxpayer typically saves 40% income tax plus 2% NI on what they sacrifice, and many employers add their own NI saving too. The calculator's salary-sacrifice tool shows your take-home with and without it side by side.

Yes — favourably in both cases. Salary sacrifice reduces your adjusted net income, which is the figure the High Income Child Benefit Charge is measured against, so sacrificing enough can bring you back under £80,000 or £60,000 and restore some or all of your Child Benefit for 2026/27. Student loan repayments are 9% (or 6% Postgraduate) of income above the plan's threshold, calculated on your post-sacrifice pay, so the deduction drops too. The calculator models both effects when you enable salary sacrifice.

A bonus is taxed as ordinary income, but it can look over-taxed in the month it's paid for two reasons: PAYE may temporarily push that month's pay into a higher band, and National Insurance is worked out per pay period so the spike is charged more NI. You don't get a separate "bonus refund", but if too much income tax was taken, PAYE self-corrects over the following months (or via your tax code), so across the year you only pay the correct amount. Paying a bonus into your pension by salary sacrifice avoids the tax and NI on it entirely — the calculator's bonus tool shows the take-home either way.

Employees pay Class 1 National Insurance at 8% on earnings between £12,570 and £50,270 a year, and 2% on earnings above £50,270, for 2026/27. NI is worked out per pay period, so a one-off bonus can be charged more NI in the month it's paid. The calculator applies the correct NI for your salary and the selected tax year automatically.

Repayments are 9% of income above your plan's threshold (6% for Postgraduate loans), deducted automatically through PAYE. For 2026/27 the thresholds are £26,900 for Plan 1, £29,385 for Plan 2, £33,795 for Plan 4, and £25,000 for Plan 5 — check your exact plan, as the threshold sets the figure. Add your plan in the calculator to fold the repayment into your take-home pay.

The High-Income Child Benefit Charge claws back Child Benefit when the higher earner's adjusted net income is over £60,000, and fully cancels it out by £80,000 (the 2026/27 band). Between £60,000 and £80,000 you repay 1% of the benefit for every £200 of income over £60,000. Because it depends on the highest individual income — not household income — the calculator's household view shows the charge per person.

A P60 is the end-of-tax-year summary your employer must give you by 31 May, showing your total taxable pay, income tax deducted, National Insurance paid and final tax code for the year ending 5 April. If you had earlier jobs in the year, the P60 also shows the pay and tax carried forward, so the totals reflect the whole year. It's the standard proof of income for Self Assessment, mortgage applications and refund claims — compare its tax to what the calculator computes for the same salary, code and pension to spot potential overpayments.

For 2026/27 the dividend allowance is £500 — that much dividend income is tax-free regardless of your other income. Above the allowance, dividends are taxed at 10.75% (basic rate), 35.75% (higher rate) or 39.35% (additional rate); the basic and higher rates were increased in the Autumn Budget 2025. Dividends still use your Personal Allowance if it isn't fully absorbed by other income, so the actual tax-free slice can be higher for someone with low salary and mostly dividend income.

Yes — the pension Annual Allowance is £60,000 for most people in 2026/27, covering combined employee, employer and salary-sacrifice contributions across all your pensions. If your adjusted income exceeds £260,000 the allowance can taper down to a minimum of £10,000, so very high earners get less. Contributions above the allowance don't get tax relief and are subject to a charge. The calculator models this year only — long-run allowance carry-forward is out of scope.

Yes. The calculator runs entirely in your browser and your salary figures are never sent to a server. Your inputs are saved only in your own browser's local storage so they're there when you return, and a shared link includes your figures only if you explicitly turn that on. The optional AI Tax Coach is the one exception — it sends your figures to Google's Gemini API only after you opt in.