What changed in 2026/27?
Comparing the 2026/27 figures with 2025/26, these are the only differences in what this site uses:
- The Scottish starter rate band now ends at £16,537 of income (was £15,397), with the standard allowance.
- The Scottish basic rate band now ends at £29,526 of income (was £27,491), with the standard allowance.
- The NI lower earnings limit (which protects your State Pension record) rose from £6,500 to £6,708 a year.
- The Plan 1 repayment threshold rose from £26,065 to £26,900 a year.
- The Plan 2 repayment threshold rose from £28,470 to £29,385 a year.
- The Plan 4 repayment threshold rose from £32,745 to £33,795 a year.
Everything else stayed the same: the £12,570 Personal Allowance, the 20%, 40% and 45% bands outside Scotland, employee National Insurance at 8% and 2% with its £12,570 and £50,270 thresholds, employer National Insurance at 15% above £5,000, the Plan 5 and Postgraduate Loan thresholds, and the £100,000 point where the allowance starts to shrink.
How does it change my take-home pay?
Here is the same pay in both years, worked out by our engine. Positive means you take home more in 2026/27.
| Case | 2025/26 | 2026/27 | Change a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| £35,000, England, no loan | £28,720 | £28,720 | £0.00 |
| £25,000, Scotland, no loan | £21,548 | £21,559 | +£11.40 |
| £35,000, Scotland, no loan | £28,673 | £28,705 | +£31.75 |
| £35,000, England, Plan 2 loan | £28,132 | £28,214 | +£82.35 |
| £45,000, England, Plan 1 loan | £34,215 | £34,291 | +£75.15 |
| £45,000, Scotland, Plan 4 loan | £34,389 | £34,515 | +£126.25 |
The changes are small: a few pounds to under a hundred pounds a year. In Scotland the wider bands save something at every salary above the starter band. Student loan borrowers on Plans 1, 2 and 4 repay less because their threshold rose: the saving is 9% of the rise, as long as they earn above the new threshold.
Why does the freeze matter?
The Personal Allowance is £12,570 in both 2025/26 and 2026/27, and the government has said it will stay there until April 2031, together with the basic rate limit and the matching National Insurance thresholds. Wages rise over time, so a frozen threshold means more of each pay rise is taxed, and more people move into the 40% band. This is often called fiscal drag.
For you, it means a pay rise is worth a little less than it looks. Use the calculator to see what a raise really adds: each result shows your marginal rate, the share of the next pound that goes in tax.
What changed for employers?
Nothing changed on the employer side for 2026/27: employer National Insurance is still 15% on pay above £5,000 a year, after the bigger change in April 2025, when the rate rose from 13.8% and the threshold fell from £9,100. What a job costs at any salary is shown on each salary page.
How do I check my own figures?
- Put your pay into the calculator with your tax code, student loan and pension.
- Look at “What changed for you” at the bottom of the result: it shows the same pay in 2025/26, line by line.
- Compare one month with your payslip in the payslip checker.
The calculator always compares with the year before, so when 2027/28 is added, every result will show what changed from 2026/27 in the same way.
What happens next?
The UK Budget on 28 October 2026 sets the plans for the 2027/28 tax year. When the new figures are published on GOV.UK we will add them as a new tax year, and every result will compare against 2026/27. Scotland sets its own income tax bands in the Scottish Budget.
Until then, every figure here is checked against GOV.UK and gov.scot, and listed on our sources page with the date we checked it.