UK Income Tax & Take-Home Pay Calculator

About the UK Income Tax & Take-Home Pay Calculator

Enter your pay and see what is left after Income Tax, National Insurance, student loan repayments and pension contributions — for the year, a month and a week. The calculator uses HMRC’s rates and thresholds for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland (with the six Scottish bands), the Personal Allowance and its taper above £100,000, and the employee or self-employed National Insurance rates, worked out the way payroll does: NI and student loan on each payday, Income Tax for the year.

Choose how you pay into a pension — a net pay arrangement, relief at source or salary sacrifice — and see what it really costs once the tax and NI it saves are counted. Tick your student loan plans, add a bonus, savings interest, dividends, a pension or rental income, company benefits, Gift Aid, Marriage Allowance or Blind Person’s Allowance, and read the band-by-band workings, your marginal rate and the pay you would need for the take-home you want. The previous tax year is in the calculator too. Nothing you type leaves your browser.

Common uses

• Checking a job offer: what a salary means each month after tax, NI, student loan and pension.
• Comparing salary sacrifice with a net pay or relief-at-source pension before you choose.
• Seeing how a pay rise or a bonus is taxed, and what you keep of it.
• Working out the salary you need for the take-home pay you want.
• Checking a payslip’s National Insurance and student loan deductions.

Income Tax bands and the Personal Allowance

With the standard Personal Allowance of £12,570, income in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is taxed: Basic rate 20%: £12,571 to £50,270 · Higher rate 40%: £50,271 to £125,140 · Additional rate 45%: over £125,140. Wales sets its own Welsh rates of Income Tax, and they give the same bands (GOV.UK).

In Scotland: Starter rate 19%: £12,571 to £16,537 · Basic rate 20%: £16,538 to £29,526 · Intermediate rate 21%: £29,527 to £43,662 · Higher rate 42%: £43,663 to £75,000 · Advanced rate 45%: £75,001 to £125,140 · Top rate 48%: over £125,140 (GOV.UK). Scottish rates apply to pay, pensions and most other income of people who live in Scotland; savings interest and dividends are taxed at the UK rates everywhere.

The Personal Allowance falls by £1 for every £2 of adjusted net income above £100,000 and is gone at £125,140 (GOV.UK). In between, each extra £1 of pay costs 60% in Income Tax (67.5% in Scotland, where that income is in the 45% advanced band). Adjusted net income is your total taxable income before any allowances, less pension contributions made with relief at source and Gift Aid, both grossed up by 1.25 (GOV.UK); salary sacrifice and net pay contributions lower it too, because they come off your pay before tax.

How National Insurance is worked out

Employees pay Class 1 National Insurance on each payday’s pay, not on the year's: 8% of pay between £1,048 and £4,189 a month (£242 and £967 a week) and 2% above (HMRC). Pay every 2 or 4 weeks uses the weekly figures × 2 or × 4. That is why a bonus paid in one month pays only 2% on the part of that month’s pay above £4,189.

• Pay from £559 a month (the Lower Earnings Limit) up to the Primary Threshold costs nothing but is treated as if contributions were paid, protecting your National Insurance record.
• Category M (under 21) and H (apprentices under 25) pay the same as category A; their employer pays nothing up to £4,189 a month. Category C — State Pension age or over — pays no employee National Insurance (GOV.UK).
• Employers pay 15% above £417 a month, and 15% Class 1A on taxable benefits.
• Self-employed: Class 4 is 6% of profits between £12,570 and £50,270 and 2% above. With profits of £7,105 or more, Class 2 is treated as paid; below that you can pay voluntary Class 2 of £3.65 a week (GOV.UK). Class 4 stops from the 6 April after you reach State Pension age (GOV.UK).

Student and Postgraduate Loans

Repayments are 9% of pay above your plan’s threshold and 6% above the Postgraduate Loan threshold, worked out on each payday and rounded down to whole pounds (HMRC SL3 tables):

• Plan 1: £26,900 a year, £2,241.66 a month, £517.30 a week
• Plan 2: £29,385 a year, £2,448.75 a month, £565.09 a week
• Plan 4: £33,795 a year, £2,816.25 a month, £649.90 a week
• Plan 5: £25,000 a year, £2,083.33 a month, £480.76 a week
• Postgraduate Loan: £21,000 a year, £1,750 a month, £403.84 a week

With more than one undergraduate plan you repay 9% above the lowest of their thresholds, shared between the plans; a Postgraduate Loan is repaid on top. The deduction is worked out on the same pay as employer National Insurance — after salary sacrifice, before a net pay pension contribution — and only on pay: payroll knows nothing of your other income.

If you are self-employed, or send a Self Assessment tax return for another reason, the year’s repayment is worked out on your total income instead, and what payroll took is deducted: pay from every job, profits and property income count (HMRC), and so do pensions (GOV.UK); savings and dividends count only when together they are over £2,000, and then all of them (HMRC CSLM16035). Employees: tick I send a Self Assessment tax return if you do; rent, savings interest or dividends with no tax taken off can mean you need to (GOV.UK). Not sure which plan you have? GOV.UK explains.

Pensions: net pay, relief at source and salary sacrifice

• Net pay arrangement: your employer takes the contribution from your pay before Income Tax, so relief comes at your top rate straight away; National Insurance and student loan are still worked out on the full pay.
• Relief at source: you pay from your take-home pay and the provider claims 20% basic-rate relief and adds it (paying £80 puts £100 in). Higher-rate and additional-rate relief is claimed from HMRC: the gross contribution widens your tax bands. A Scottish taxpayer on the 19% starter rate still gets 20% (GOV.UK). Relief stops at contributions of 100% of your earnings, or £3,600 gross with little or no earnings.
• Salary sacrifice: you give up salary and your employer pays it into the pension, so you save Income Tax, National Insurance and student loan, and the employer saves its NI. It must not take cash pay below the National Minimum Wage and can lower statutory pay (GOV.UK). Announced: from 6 April 2029 salary sacrificed into a pension above £2,000 a year will be liable to Class 1 National Insurance (GOV.UK).

Workplace pensions often take a percentage of qualifying earnings: pay between £6,240 and £50,270 a year (DWP, GOV.UK), worked out each payday with the limits for that pay period: £520 to £4,189 a month, £120 to £967 a week (The Pensions Regulator). The calculator shows what each contribution costs you after the tax and NI it saves.

Savings interest, dividends and other income

Income is taxed in a fixed order: pay, pensions, profits and rent first, then savings interest, then dividends on top. Savings interest has a 0% starting rate for savings on up to £5,000, less every £1 of other income above your Personal Allowance, and a Personal Savings Allowance of £1,000 for basic-rate taxpayers, £500 for higher-rate taxpayers and nothing for additional-rate taxpayers (GOV.UK). The first £500 of dividends is tax-free; then dividends are taxed at 10.75%, 35.75% and 39.35% in the basic, higher and additional rate bands (GOV.UK). None of this income, nor pensions or rent, pays National Insurance.

The allowances are set against your income in the way that gives the lowest tax, as HMRC does. Interest and dividends are paid without tax taken off, so the tax on them is collected through your tax code or a Self Assessment return.

Marriage Allowance, Blind Person’s Allowance and Gift Aid

• Marriage Allowance: a spouse or civil partner whose income is below the Personal Allowance can transfer £1,260 of it to a partner who pays tax at the basic rate (in Scotland the starter, basic or intermediate rate), cutting the partner’s tax by up to £252 (GOV.UK).
• Blind Person’s Allowance adds £3,250 to your Personal Allowance (GOV.UK).
• Gift Aid: what you give × 1.25 widens your basic rate band and lowers adjusted net income, so higher-rate taxpayers get the extra relief through Self Assessment.

Marginal rate and the pay you need

The marginal rate is the share of your next £100 of pay that goes in Income Tax, National Insurance and student loan, with your pension contributions unchanged: 28% for most basic-rate employees (20% + 8%), 42% for higher-rate employees (40% + 2%), 51% for a higher-rate employee repaying a Plan 2 loan (40% + 2% + 9%), and 62% between £100,000 and £125,140, where the Personal Allowance taper adds 20%. The effective rate is what all three take of your whole income.

Under the results, The pay you need for a take-home works backwards: enter the take-home you want a month, a year or a week, and it finds the smallest whole-pound salary (or profit) that gives it, with everything else as you entered it.

Limitations

• Income Tax is the tax due for the year with the standard allowances. A tax code with adjustments (benefits, untaxed income, underpaid tax) or an emergency code changes what payroll takes during the year.
• Choose employee or self-employed: the calculator does not combine Class 1 and Class 4 for someone who is both in the same year.
• Not included: company directors’ annual National Insurance, the married women’s reduced rate, deferment, Freeport and Investment Zone categories, Married Couple’s Allowance, trading or property losses, foreign income, the High Income Child Benefit Charge and the pension annual allowance charge.
• Weekly pay counts 52 paydays; some tax years have a 53rd. Payroll rounding can make a payslip differ by a few pence.
• An estimate for information, not tax advice. HMRC’s own figures and your payslips are the final word.

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