Take-home pay calculator 2026/27

Salary sacrifice also saves National Insurance and can reduce student loan repayments, because it lowers the pay those are worked out on. Relief at source adds basic-rate tax relief in the pension; anyone paying above the basic rate has to claim the rest themselves, through Self Assessment or a change to their tax code.

1257L is the standard code for someone with one job and the full Personal Allowance. The number is the allowance with the last digit removed, and the letter tells your employer how to apply it. If your code is different, your tax-free amount is different.

Scotland sets its own income tax bands and rates, so a Scottish taxpayer pays a different amount of income tax on the same salary. National Insurance, student loan repayments and the Personal Allowance are the same across the UK.

There is no separate rate for a bonus, but a bonus can still be taxed at a higher rate than the rest of your pay, because it is charged on top of it. Income tax on a cumulative tax code is worked out on your pay for the year to date at every pay day, so where the bonus leaves your pay for the year inside the same band, a month that takes more than usual is corrected over the months that follow. Where it carries your pay into a higher band, the pounds above the line are charged at that band’s rate and nothing comes back later: in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with the standard Personal Allowance, 40% applies above £50,270 and 45% above £125,140. The Personal Allowance taper is the same everywhere in the UK: between £100,000 and £125,140 of adjusted net income the allowance falls by a pound for every £2 over that line, which charges a bonus in that range at 60% in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and at 67.5% in Scotland, once the lost allowance is counted. Scotland sets its own bands and rates: its higher rate starts lower than the rest of the UK’s, and its top rate starts at the same point as the additional rate. National Insurance is not worked out on the year at all: for an employee it is charged on the earnings of the pay period the bonus falls in, against the thresholds prescribed for that period, and nothing reconciles it afterwards — so the National Insurance on a bonus is final, whether or not your pay for the year crosses a band. A company director is the exception, because a director’s National Insurance is worked out over an earnings period of a whole year.