Take-home pay calculator

Figures 2026/27 tax year Last checked 21 August 2026 Where these come from

On £35,000 a year in England in the 2026/27 tax year, you keep £28,720 — £2,393 a month. Income tax takes £4,486 and National Insurance £1,794. Change the salary below for your own figure.

An annual calculation, not a copy of your payslip. PAYE works period by period and rounds each deduction as it goes, so a year of payslips can differ by a few pounds — more if your pay is uneven. The FAQs below explain why, and what this does not model.

What catches people out

• Between £100,000 and £125,140 the personal allowance is withdrawn at £1 for every £2 earned, so an extra pound of salary is taxed at 60% — 62% once National Insurance is counted, and 71% with a student loan running. No rates table shows this, because there is no such band. It is the highest marginal rate in the UK system, higher than the 45% additional rate above it.
• National Insurance is charged on your earnings, not on your taxable income. The personal allowance does not reduce it. That the primary threshold and the personal allowance are both £12,570 at the moment is a coincidence of policy, not one rule — they have been different before and will be again.
• Scotland sets its own income tax rates and bands, and has six of them rather than three. National Insurance and student loan repayments are not devolved, so a Scottish taxpayer pays Scottish income tax and UK-wide everything else.
• A postgraduate loan runs alongside an undergraduate one rather than replacing it. If you have both, both are deducted — 9% above one threshold and 6% above another, at the same time.
• Salary sacrifice is not the same as a workplace pension deducted from your pay. Sacrificed pay is never yours, so it reduces income tax, National Insurance and the personal allowance taper alike. A net pay arrangement saves income tax but not National Insurance, and relief at source gives basic-rate relief at the provider with any higher-rate relief claimed separately.

How the calculation runs

In order, because the order is what makes the answer come out right. Any salary sacrifice comes off first, since sacrificed pay never becomes your income at all. What is left is your earnings, and everything else is worked out on that figure.

Income tax takes your personal allowance off — reduced by £1 for every £2 you earn above £100,000 — and charges the remainder band by band. National Insurance ignores the allowance entirely and charges its own thresholds against your earnings. Student loan repayments are a flat percentage of everything above the threshold for your plan, and each plan is worked out separately, so two loans mean two deductions.

Questions

Why is my payslip a few pounds different?

Because this is an annual calculation and PAYE is not. Your employer works out tax and National Insurance for each pay period separately, and rounds each deduction as it goes — HMRC's own worked example shows a student loan repayment of £45.81 being deducted as £45. Across a year those roundings add up to a few pounds.

The difference is larger if your pay is uneven. A big bonus in one month attracts National Insurance at the higher 8% rate within that month even though your annual earnings would put part of it above the upper earnings limit, so a year of payslips can differ from an annual calculation by rather more than rounding. If your salary is steady, the two should agree closely.

Does this include my workplace pension?

Only if it is salary sacrifice, and only if you enter the percentage. Auto-enrolment contributions are not assumed, because the arrangement your employer uses changes the answer and no calculator can tell which one you are on from a salary figure.

If your payslip shows your pension coming off before tax and National Insurance, that is sacrifice and the box here matches it. If it comes off after National Insurance but before tax, that is a net pay arrangement and this will understate what you keep. If your provider adds 25% to what you pay in, that is relief at source and this does not model it at all.

What is the marginal rate, and why is it higher than my tax band?

It is the proportion of your next pound of pay that would be taken — which is what actually matters when you are weighing a pay rise, an overtime shift or a bonus. It is worked out here by running the whole calculation again a pound higher and taking the difference, not by looking up a band.

It is almost always higher than your tax band, because your band is only the income tax part. National Insurance and student loan repayments come on top, and between £100,000 and £125,140 the disappearing personal allowance adds another 20 points.

What does this calculator not know about?

A fair amount, and it is better to say so. It does not model tax codes other than the standard allowance, the marriage allowance, blind person's allowance, benefits in kind such as a company car, taxable expenses, more than one job, self-employment, pension contributions above the annual allowance, or the child benefit charge.

It assumes a steady salary across a full tax year, that you are under state pension age and on National Insurance category A, and that your income is all employment income. If any of that is wrong for you, treat the answer as an approximation of the right shape rather than a figure to plan around.

Which tax year should I pick?

The one your pay falls in. UK tax years run from 6 April to 5 April, so pay received in, say, February 2027 belongs to the 2026/27 year. The current year is selected by default.

Where do the rates come from?

HMRC's published rates and thresholds for the year, plus the gov.uk pages for income tax and student loan repayment. Every one is linked at the bottom of this page, along with the date a person last opened it and checked the figures here still match. If a number here disagrees with the source, the source is right and we want to know.

Rates for 2026/27 were checked against these pages on 21 August 2026. Earlier tax years cite their own sources in the engine. If a figure here disagrees with the source, the source is right — tell us.

Paid somewhere else?

This page calculates a British salary. There is an Australian version and a US federal one, each with its own sources and its own check date — these are three different tax systems rather than one calculation in three currencies. Australia has a nil-rated threshold instead of a personal allowance, and the United States changes the brackets themselves according to how you file.

Australian take-home pay US federal take-home pay

Work out the next thing

• Statutory redundancy payWorked out year by year, because the rate depends on the age you were during each year of service rather than your age when the job ends.
• Child BenefitHow much is clawed back above £60,000, and the marginal rate — which is the one UK threshold that depends on how many children you have.
• Pay riseWhat a rise or a bonus is actually worth in your bank account, and the marginal rate that decides it.