Scottish salary calculator

The 6 Scottish bands for 2026/27

Above the £12,570 Personal Allowance, Scottish Income Tax runs through the starter rate of 19% from £12,571 to £16,537, the basic rate of 20% from £16,538 to £29,526, the intermediate rate of 21% from £29,527 to £43,662, the higher rate of 42% from £43,663 to £75,000, the advanced rate of 45% from £75,001 to £125,140, the top rate of 48% on everything above £125,140.

The rest of the UK does the same job with 3 rates. That is the whole difference: not one rate that is higher, but more bands, each covering a narrower slice of income. It is why the answer to "am I better or worse off in Scotland?" depends entirely on which slice your salary reaches.

• 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% — everything above £125,140

What the difference actually costs

The table below runs the same four salaries through the same engine twice, once with Scottish rates and once with the rest of the UK's, and shows the gap. Every figure is take-home after Income Tax and National Insurance on a standard tax code with no pension or student loan.

The pattern is not a straight line. A Scottish taxpayer on £30,000 keeps marginally more, because the starter rate shaves a point off the first slice of taxable income. By £50,000 the position has reversed sharply, because the Scottish higher rate starts at £43,663 while the rest of the UK is still charging basic rate up to and including £50,270. That is £6,608 of income taxed at 42% in one place and 20% in the other, and at that salary it accounts for almost all of the gap.

It does not stay that way. The higher the salary, the more the advanced and top rates do the work instead, and by the last row of the table that early slice explains well under half of the difference.

The 67.5% band nobody mentions

Between £100,000 and £125,140 the Personal Allowance is withdrawn at £1 for every £2 of adjusted net income — which is broadly income after pension contributions and Gift Aid, not gross salary. That withdrawal is UK-wide, but in Scotland it lands on top of the advanced rate rather than the higher rate, so each extra pound of income in that range carries 67.5% of Income Tax, and 69.5% once National Insurance is counted with it.

No band in either rate table is that high — Scotland's own top rate above £125,140 is 48% — and nothing on a payslip is labelled 67.5%. It simply emerges from two rules meeting. A student loan, or the High Income Child Benefit Charge on a larger family, can take more of an extra pound still.

Because the taper runs on adjusted net income, a gross pension contribution made in that range reduces the income the taper is measured against, so part of the Personal Allowance comes back. How that reaches you depends on the method your scheme uses. Under net pay or salary sacrifice it happens in payroll and shows up in the same month’s take-home. Under relief at source the provider adds the basic-rate part and anything above that is claimed from HMRC separately, so the box above — which is fixed to relief at source — will not move its Income Tax figure when you enter a contribution. The relief above basic rate is real; it just does not arrive through payroll.

Scottish rates follow where you live, not who pays you

Scottish Income Tax applies by residence, and your employer's address has nothing to do with it — Glasgow, Manchester or nowhere in particular makes no difference.

You have to be UK resident for the year for the question to arise at all. After that it turns on where your only or main home is across the tax year as a whole: one UK home and it is in Scotland, or, with more than one, a main home in Scotland for at least as much of the year as in any one other part of the UK. "At least as much" is the part people get wrong — a year split evenly between Scotland and one other part of the UK counts as Scottish, not as a draw. Only where there is no main home anywhere does the test fall back to counting days. Moving partway through does not split the year: one set of rates applies to all of it.

The marker is the S prefix on your tax code — S1257L rather than 1257L. If you have moved and the S is missing, or present when it should not be, payroll is deducting the wrong rates and only HMRC can correct the code.

• Residence is decided by where your only or main home is across the tax year, not by your employer's address.
• The S prefix on a tax code is what tells payroll to use Scottish rates.
• National Insurance is not devolved, so it is the same in Scotland as anywhere else in the UK.
• This is an estimate from published rates, not a statement of your tax position.