Income Tax Calculator

What this calculator does

This calculator estimates UK take-home pay by applying income tax and National Insurance in the order HMRC does. Pension contributions come off first where they reduce taxable pay, the personal allowance is applied, and income tax is charged band by band. National Insurance is then calculated on its own separate thresholds, which do not line up with the income tax bands.

It returns net pay annually and monthly, your effective rate across the whole salary, your marginal rate on the next pound, and a full deduction breakdown showing income tax, National Insurance, pension, and any student loan repayment as both a cash figure and a percentage of gross. That separation matters, because National Insurance and student loan are frequently mistaken for income tax.

When to use it

The obvious moment is when you have a salary figure and need the monthly number that will actually land in your account. It is equally useful when comparing two offers where one carries a better pension contribution, since employer pension and salary sacrifice change take-home in ways the headline salary hides.

The sharpest use is planning around thresholds. If a rise would take you past 100,000 pounds, or past 60,000 pounds where the High Income Child Benefit Charge begins to bite, the calculator shows how little of the increase you actually keep. Running the figure with a larger pension contribution that brings adjusted net income back below the threshold is often the answer, and sometimes the answer is to decline the extra work.

Understanding the inputs

Salary is your annual gross pay before deductions. The pension field should carry your own contribution; if you are on salary sacrifice, the saving is larger than the calculator shows because National Insurance falls too, so treat the result as conservative.

Student loan plan type matters more than people expect, because each plan has its own repayment threshold and Plan 2 and Plan 5 sit far above Plan 1. Choose the plan that matches when and where you studied, not the size of the balance. Hours per week only affects the hourly equivalent figure and does not change tax. Thresholds for every one of these fields are revised each April.

How is this calculated?

income-tax-calculator

A worked example

Take a salary of 62,000 pounds with a 5 percent personal pension contribution of 3,100 pounds, using 2026/27 thresholds. Taxable pay falls to 58,900 pounds, and after a 12,570 pound personal allowance, roughly 46,300 pounds is taxable. The first 37,700 pounds is charged at 20 percent, giving about 7,540 pounds, and the remaining 8,600 pounds at 40 percent adds about 3,450 pounds, for roughly 11,000 pounds of income tax.

National Insurance is charged on the full 62,000 pounds under a net-pay scheme: 8 percent on earnings between 12,570 and 50,270 pounds is about 3,020 pounds, plus 2 percent on the balance above, around 235 pounds. Take-home lands near 44,700 pounds, roughly 3,720 pounds a month. The effective rate is about 23 percent while the marginal rate is 42 percent.

Limitations and assumptions

This is an estimate, not tax advice, and HMRC is the authority on what you owe. It models employment income under PAYE for an English, Welsh, or Northern Irish taxpayer with a standard tax code. Scottish rates and bands differ and are not applied. Benefits in kind, company cars, salary sacrifice for anything other than pension, the Marriage Allowance, Blind Person's Allowance, and the High Income Child Benefit Charge are all outside its scope.

Every threshold quoted changes at the start of a tax year in April, and allowances have been frozen or adjusted repeatedly in recent Budgets, so verify current figures on GOV.UK before relying on them. If you have multiple employments, untaxed income, or a complicated tax code, your payslip and a Self Assessment calculation will be the accurate answers.