Our take-home pay calculator

Note: this calculator is completely up-to-date, and includes all the latest tax changes for the tax year 2025/26.

We hope our Nuts About Money take-home pay calculator helps you find out how much you’ll earn after tax – and hopefully it’s not too scary a figure (although tax is pretty high these days!).

It’s very accurate, and based on the government tax rates – both the UK Government and the Scottish Government (there’s different tax in Scotland compared to the rate of the UK).

Income Tax is worked out by something called ‘tax bands’, which the government decides and can change in the future, which they’ll announce within a ‘budget’.

They’re a percentage (rate) that you’ll pay on part of your salary, and these parts are called a threshold.

That sounds confusing, let’s look at a table:

Taxable income Tax rate Band
Up to £12,570   0%   Personal Allowance  
£12,571 to £50,270   20%   Basic rate  
£50,271 to £125,140   40%   Higher rate  
over £125,140   45%   Additional rate  

Taxable income Tax rate Band
Up to £12,570   0%   Personal Allowance  
£12,571 to £15,397   19%   Starter rate  
£15,398 to £27,491   20%   Basic rate  
£27,492 to £43,662   21%   Intermediate rate  
£43,663 to £75,000   42%   Higher rate  
£75,001 to £125,140   45%   Advanced rate  
Over £125,140   48%   Top rate  

That's still a bit confusing, let's run through an example...

Let's use England as an example as it's a bit simpler (sorry Scotland!).

This shows that on the first £12,570 you earn, you’ll pay 0% in tax, nice! This is called your Personal Allowance.

After you earn more than £12,570 you’ll then pay 20% tax on the money after £12,570, so not your whole salary. This is called the basic rate.

And the basic rate goes all the way to £50,270, so you’ll be paying 20% tax on everything you earn between £12,570 and £50,270. 

After £50,270, you’ll be paying 40% tax on everything you earn above that, called higher rate tax.

And then after £125,140, you’ll be paying 45% on anything you earn above that, and this is called additional rate tax.

Everyone gets a Personal Allowance of £12,570 each year – that’s how much you can earn and not pay any tax at all.
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This can change depending on your tax code (explained below).

However, if your earnings hit £100,000 your Personal Allowance begins to reduce too - and quite rapidly.

For every £2 you earn above £100,000 your Personal Allowance will reduce by £1, until all your Personal Allowance is gone.

Which means if your earnings hit £125,140, you won’t have any Personal Allowance, and you’ll be paying tax on your whole salary.

National Insurance Contributions (NIC), is a bit easier than Income Tax. And is the same across the UK.

You still get your tax free allowance, called your Personal Allowance, which is £12,570, so you won’t pay national insurance on anything before you earn that amount.

After you earn £12,570, you’ll pay 8% – yikes! And that goes all the way up to £50,270 too, just like Income Tax.

However, good news, after that, you’ll pay just 2% on everything you earn above that.

Your Personal Allowance is not reduced for National Insurance, unlike income tax, you’ll always have that.

National Insurance is technically measured in weeks, and here’s what it looks like:

Your pay National Insurance rate
£242 to £967 a week (£1,048 to £4,189 a month)   8%  
Over £967 a week (£4,189 a month)   2%  

If you earn a bonus you can potentially reduce how much you pay in tax – by paying it into your pension instead, as you get tax-free benefits on your pension payments. Learn more about this with our guide to how bonuses are taxed.

Everyone has a tax code when it comes to paying tax, and this effectively represents how big your Personal Allowance is – which is how much you can save tax-free.

Most people’s tax code is 1257L, which means you can earn £12,570 before you start paying tax.

If you owe the government money in taxes, they can reduce your tax code (e.g. to 1000L to represent a £10,000 Personal Allowance) so you end up repaying what you owe through your regular pay, because you now pay tax on a higher portion of your income.

The letters can change too, and represent different things, for instance if your partner has given you some of their Marriage Allowance, your tax code could be 1383M.

If you’re not sure what your tax code means, use the government’s tax code checker.

If you qualify, the Blind Person’s Allowance increases your normal Personal Allowance, which is the amount of money you can earn before you start paying tax – we’ve described it above in detail.

The Blind Person’s Allowance is currently £3,130 – so you don’t pay tax on any of this amount.

If you have a partner and you both qualify, you’ll both get it.

And, if you don’t earn enough per year for the allowance to have any impact (e.g. you don’t pay tax), you can transfer this to your partner (spouse or civil partner), who can use it to reduce the amount of tax they’ll pay instead.

Repaying your student loan can get pretty complicated, it’s not as simple as a flat fee per year, it all depends on how much you earn, and even when you started university.

We won’t run through all the different interest rates for each type, although we’ve estimated your repayments within our calculator.

If you’re not sure what plan you’re on, here’s a run through:

If you got the student loan from Student Finance Northern Ireland. There’s no date limit. (So if you’re from Northern Ireland.)

And, if you’re from England and Wales, but studied a course that started before 1st September 2012 (​​got the student loan from Student Finance England or Student Finance Wales).

If you’re from England and Wales, but started your course between 1st September 2012 and 31st July 2023. And for those only from Wales from 1st August 2023.

This is for postgraduate students from England and Wales.

For those from Scotland (no date limits).

If you’re from England, and if you started your course on or after 1st August 2023.

Don’t worry! If you’re employed your employer will handle everything for you, it will be taken from your wages before you get paid. When you get your payslip, you’ll see how much you’ve paid for that period.

If you’re self-employed, it’s a bit more complicated, but don’t stress, it’s still easy. You’ll have to work out how much you need to pay (well, HMRC will do it for you), and you’ll pay it through your Self Assessment tax return each year. 

Income Tax is something that most people have to pay in the UK (everyone who earns an income) – unfortunately you can’t avoid it!

But you are let off paying it, if you have a lower income (less than £12,570).

Income Tax goes straight to the government to pay for all the spending they do, which can be on things like transport services, education in schools, national defence (like the army), our huge national debt, and lots more, even the royal family!

Nuts About Money tip: if you want to see exactly how it’s spent, read the Annual Tax Summary.

National Insurance (technically called National Insurance Contributions) is also something everyone has to pay (unless, you learn less than £12,570).

But instead of this money going towards anything the government wants to spend it on, it goes towards things that help other people.

So, things like healthcare (the NHS), the state pension, and benefits, such as maternity allowance, job seekers allowance and lots more.

Nuts About Money tip: you can learn more about how National Insurance is used here.

It's a great idea to save for your future, most of us won't have enough to live comfortably when we retire – but we can change that with a private pension.

It's a pension you own (technically called a personal pension), and you decide how much you pay into it, you can pay into it whenever you want, and it's got some awesome benefits – you'll get tax-relief on whatever you pay into it!

That means the government will add a massive 25% of all the money you put into your personal pension, all automatically, and all for free. Great right?

And if you're a higher rate tax-payer, you can claim back some of the 40% tax you've paid, and the same if you're an additional rate tax-payer (45%).

Sound good to you? Check out the best private pension providers to learn more and find the best provider for you.

You can also check out the best investment platforms if you'd like to manage your pension as an investment account too.