By ANUPRESS Team · Last reviewed August 2026 · 12 min read
For UK take-home pay 2026/27, the short version is this: if your salary hasn’t changed since last April, your take-home pay hasn’t changed either. The Personal Allowance, every Income Tax band, and both main National Insurance thresholds are frozen at exactly their 2025/26 levels. What did change: the freeze itself got extended three more years to 2031, Scotland moved two of its six bands, Student Loan Plan 5 made its first-ever appearance, and the real number behind the “60% tax trap” is higher than a lot of finance content currently claims.
On this page
UK take-home pay 2026/27: the real headline is a longer freeze
At the Autumn Budget on 26 November 2025, the government extended the freeze on the £12,570 Personal Allowance and the £50,270 higher-rate threshold, both originally due to start rising again in 2027/28, so that they now stay fixed until April 2031, according to the House of Commons Library’s own summary of the Budget. Nothing about the rates or bands themselves moved for UK take-home pay 2026/27. The freeze just got three years longer.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. A frozen threshold next to rising wages is still a tax rise, just a quiet one: as pay grows with inflation, more of it lands in the taxable and higher-rate bands each year without a single rate ever going up. This effect has a name, fiscal drag, and extending the freeze to 2031 means it now runs for a full decade from when it first started in 2021/22.
| Before the Nov 2025 Budget | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Personal Allowance frozen until | April 2028 | April 2031 |
| Higher-rate threshold frozen until | April 2028 | April 2031 |
| 2026/27 Personal Allowance | £12,570 — unchanged | |
| 2026/27 higher-rate threshold | £50,270 — unchanged | |
Rest-of-UK Income Tax bands for 2026/27
England, Wales and Northern Ireland use the same three-band structure as 2025/26, at the same thresholds.
Take someone earning £35,000, unchanged from last year. Their tax bill is identical to 2025/26 down to the penny: £4,486 in Income Tax, £1,794.40 in National Insurance, leaving £28,719.60. Nothing to recalculate, because nothing in their situation moved.
Scotland: two of the six bands actually moved
Scotland sets its own Income Tax rates and bands independently, and for 2026/27 it did something rest-of-UK didn’t: the Scottish Government’s own technical factsheet confirms it raised two thresholds by 7.4%, well above the roughly 3.8% inflation rate for the year, while freezing the other four.
| Band | Rate | 2026/27 range | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 19% | £12,571–£16,537 | Threshold up 7.4% |
| Basic | 20% | £16,538–£29,526 | Threshold up 7.4% |
| Intermediate | 21% | £29,527–£43,662 | Frozen |
| Higher | 42% | £43,663–£75,000 | Frozen |
| Advanced | 45% | £75,001–£125,140 | Frozen |
| Top | 48% | Above £125,140 | Frozen |
The practical effect lands almost entirely on lower and middle earners: a wider 19% and 20% band means a few hundred pounds of income that would have been taxed at the next rate up stays at the lower one instead. Higher earners see nothing move, since the Higher, Advanced and Top thresholds are frozen exactly like their rest-of-UK equivalents. The Personal Allowance itself, £12,570, is identical in Scotland and the rest of the UK either way.
Rest-of-UK or Scottish bands, both built in
Our UK take-home pay calculator asks where you pay tax before it shows a number, since National Insurance and student loans are identical either way but Income Tax genuinely isn’t. Every 2026/27 rate is cited to an official source.
Open the UK take-home pay calculatorNational Insurance: mostly frozen, one small move
The employee National Insurance rate stays at 8% between the Primary Threshold and Upper Earnings Limit, then 2% above it, identical to 2025/26. Both of those main thresholds are frozen too, aligned with the Income Tax Personal Allowance and higher-rate threshold. One smaller figure did move.
| Threshold | 2026/27 | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Lower Earnings Limit | £129/week (£6,708/yr) | Increased |
| Primary Threshold | £12,570/yr | Frozen |
| Upper Earnings Limit | £50,270/yr | Frozen |
| Employer Secondary Threshold | £5,000/yr | Frozen |
The Lower Earnings Limit sits below the Primary Threshold, and earning between the two costs you nothing in actual National Insurance while still counting as a qualifying year toward your State Pension. Its small rise mostly matters to payroll software configuration, not to what lands in your account. Separately, under the Employment Rights Act 2025, Statutory Sick Pay becomes payable from day one of illness this year, removing the previous earnings floor for eligibility, worth knowing even though it doesn’t change a single healthy month’s take-home figure.
Student loans: Plan 5 makes its first appearance
2026/27 is the first tax year Student Loan Plan 5 actually deducts anything. It covers English and Welsh undergraduates who started their course from August 2023 onward, and mandatory repayments through payroll begin this April for the first time ever, at a threshold of £25,000, the lowest starting point of any plan.
| Plan | Who | 2026/27 threshold | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan 1 | Pre-Sept 2012 (Eng/Wales), any year (Scot/NI) | £26,900 | 9% |
| Plan 2 | Eng/Wales, 2012–2023 | £29,385 | 9% |
| Plan 4 | Scotland | £33,795 | 9% |
| Plan 5 | Eng/Wales, from Aug 2023 | £25,000 — new this year | 9% |
| Postgraduate | Master’s/Doctoral loan | £21,000 | 6% |
Plan 2’s own threshold rose to £29,385 this year, which is a genuine, if quiet, win for anyone on it: a slightly higher slice of income now sits below the repayment line than it did in 2025/26. It’s the last rise it will get for a while. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies has documented, the same November Budget that extended the Income Tax freeze also confirmed the Plan 2 threshold will itself freeze at £29,385 for three years from April 2027, the same fiscal-drag mechanism now applied to student loan repayments as well as UK take-home pay 2026/27 tax bands.
The £100,000–£125,140 trap, calculated correctly
Between £100,000 and £125,140, the £12,570 Personal Allowance tapers away at £1 for every £2 earned above £100,000. That much is well known. What’s widely mis-stated is the actual marginal rate this produces, because losing the allowance doesn’t just cost you tax on the lost allowance, it costs you tax on it at whatever rate applies to your next pound, compounding rather than simply adding up.
The real marginal rate, worked through the actual bands
- £100,000 to roughly £117,000: 62% combined (Income Tax + NI), not the commonly quoted 60% or the sometimes-quoted 52%
- Approaching £120,000: rises to around 67%, because taxable income crosses into the 45% additional-rate band before the allowance has fully gone
- By £125,140, where the allowance hits zero: close to 70% on the final slice
The mechanism: the basic-rate band is a fixed £37,700 width that sits on top of whatever your Personal Allowance currently is, not a fixed £50,270 gross cut-off. As the allowance shrinks past £100,000, the point where 40% starts moves earlier in gross terms too, which is exactly what produces the rate above 60% rather than a flatter, gentler number. Pension contributions or Gift Aid donations reduce your adjusted net income, which is the one practical lever that pulls you back out of this band entirely.
Frequently asked questions
Did UK Income Tax rates go up for 2026/27?
No. The 20%, 40% and 45% rates (19–48% in Scotland) are identical to 2025/26, as are the Personal Allowance and higher-rate threshold. What changed was the government extending how long those figures stay frozen, from April 2028 out to April 2031.
Is my take-home pay definitely the same as last year?
Only if your gross salary is also unchanged. That’s the core mechanic behind UK take-home pay 2026/27: frozen bands mean identical tax on identical income, but any pay rise now pushes more of that increase into a higher band than it would have if the thresholds had risen with inflation, a bigger bite than the headline rates suggest.
What’s actually new for Scottish taxpayers this year?
The Starter and Basic rate thresholds rose by 7.4% each, above inflation, while the Intermediate, Higher, Advanced and Top thresholds stayed frozen. The practical effect helps lower and middle earners; higher earners see no change.
Do I have a Plan 5 student loan?
If you’re an English or Welsh undergraduate who started your course from August 2023 onward, yes, and this is the first year repayments actually start coming out of your pay, from April 2026, at a £25,000 threshold.
Is the “60% tax trap” actually 60%?
It’s slightly worse than that through most of the band. Once National Insurance is included, the real marginal rate on income between £100,000 and roughly £117,000 is 62%, not 60% and not the lower figures some sources quote. It then climbs further, toward 70%, as you approach £125,140.
What is fiscal drag, in plain terms?
When tax thresholds stay fixed while wages rise with inflation, more of every pay rise falls into a taxable or higher-rate band than it would if the thresholds moved too. It raises real tax revenue without any headline rate ever changing, which is why extending a freeze functions as a tax rise even though no percentage on the page moves.
This page explains how UK take-home pay 2026/27 works; it isn’t personal financial advice. Last reviewed August 2026. See how we review and our affiliate disclosure.
