UK tax year updates

The 2026/27 figures every estimate uses

These are the PAYE planning inputs the calculation engine reads. The Income Tax, National Insurance and student-loan figures live in one configuration file, and this page interpolates the figures it shows from that file — so for these, the page cannot drift from the results.

• Personal Allowance: £12,570, tapering away between £100,000 and £125,140 of adjusted net income.
• Income Tax outside Scotland: 20% basic rate on the first £37,700 of taxable income — income after the allowance — then the 40% higher rate, with the additional rate starting at £125,140 of taxable income. Scotland runs its own 6-band structure, covered on the Scottish salary calculator.
• Employee National Insurance: 8% between £12,570 and £50,270 of annual earnings, 2% above that, on the annualised Class 1 category A basis.
• Minimum wage bands, statutory pay rates and the NHS pay scales live in their own rules modules, each carrying its own official citation and its own last-checked date — those are listed on the Sources page rather than restated here.

What actually happens when a year changes

A new tax year is not one number swapped for another. The Personal Allowance, each band width, both National Insurance thresholds, every student-loan plan threshold, the minimum wage bands and the statutory pay rates all move — or pointedly do not, which is how frozen thresholds raise tax without a rate rising. When a new year's figures are published, each one is verified against the official source and recorded with a citation and a retrieval date before it is switched on, and the dates above say when that last happened.

Checking a payslip against a year change

The first payslip after 6 April is the one worth reading closely. Two things explain most surprises there: a tax code carried over from last year while the allowance it encodes has changed, and a pay rise landing in the same month the thresholds moved, so two effects overlap. Rule changes do not all wait for April either — National Insurance has changed mid-year before, on a different schedule from Income Tax, which is why the dates above matter as much as the figures. If the deductions still look wrong after that, the payslip diagnostic works out what your pay and tax code should have produced and lists what could account for the difference.