Enter your tax code to understand your tax-free allowance and what it means.
Fill in your details and press Calculate
| Band | Taxable income | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Personal Allowance | Up to £12,570 | 0% |
| Basic rate | £12,571 to £50,270 | 20% |
| Higher rate | £50,271 to £125,140 | 40% |
| Additional rate | Over £125,140 | 45% |
Personal Allowance reduces by £1 for every £2 earned above £100,000, reaching £0 at £125,140. Employee National Insurance is separate: 8% between £12,570 and £50,270, then 2% above that.
What this calculator covers and how the numbers are worked out
Your tax code tells your employer or pension provider how much of your income to treat as tax-free before working out PAYE tax on the rest. Type in the code shown on your payslip, P60 or HMRC coding notice, and this tool explains what each part means and roughly how much tax-free pay it gives you.
Most tax codes are built the same way: a number followed by a letter. The number is your tax-free allowance divided by ten - so the standard 2026/27 code, 1257L, represents the standard £12,570 Personal Allowance (1257 x 10 = £12,570). The L simply means you're entitled to the standard tax-free Personal Allowance with no special adjustments.
Take someone on a salary of £38,000 with the standard 1257L code. £12,570 of that is tax-free, leaving £25,430 of taxable income - all within the 20% basic-rate band, since it's below the £37,700 basic-rate threshold. That comes to £5,086 of tax for the year, or about £423.83 a month, spread evenly through PAYE.
Some letters replace the standard allowance-based system entirely. BR means all your income from that job is taxed at 20% with no tax-free amount at all; D0 taxes everything at 40%; D1 taxes everything at 45%; and NT means no tax is deducted at all. These are commonly used for a second job or pension, on the assumption your tax-free allowance has already been used against your main income.
K codes work in reverse: instead of giving you an allowance, they add to your taxable pay, because you have untaxed income or benefits - such as a company car, or unpaid tax from a previous year - worth more than your Personal Allowance. For example, someone with £15,000 of benefits in kind and a standard £12,570 Personal Allowance would have an excess of £2,430, giving a tax code of K243 - meaning £2,430 is added to their taxable pay before tax is worked out, on top of their normal salary.
A letter prefix shows which part of the UK's tax rates apply: S means Scottish rates (19% to 48% across six bands), C means Welsh rates, and no prefix means the standard England and Northern Ireland rates apply.
Tax codes change during the year if HMRC adjusts your estimated income, so it's worth checking yours whenever your circumstances change - a new job, a company benefit starting or stopping, or moving between parts of the UK. If your code looks wrong, contact HMRC directly, since an incorrect code can mean you're overpaying or underpaying tax without realising.
It's also worth checking your tax code at the start of each tax year and after any letter from HMRC, since an employer can only apply the code they've been told to use - if HMRC's records are out of date, for example after you finish repaying an old tax underpayment, your employer won't automatically correct it without a new coding notice. Comparing the code on your payslip against what this tool tells you it should mean is a quick way to catch an error early, rather than discovering a large under- or overpayment months later.
It's the standard tax code for 2026/27, giving you the full £12,570 tax-free Personal Allowance - the 1257 represents £12,570 divided by ten, and L means the standard allowance applies with no adjustments.
A K code means your untaxed income or benefits are worth more than your Personal Allowance, so an amount is added to your taxable pay instead of an allowance being subtracted - for example K243 adds £2,430 to your taxable income each year.
They tax all of your income from that source at a flat rate with no tax-free allowance at all - 20% for BR, 40% for D0, and 45% for D1 - most often used on a second job or pension where your full allowance is already applied elsewhere.
S means you're taxed under Scottish income tax rates (19% to 48% across six bands), and C means you're taxed under Welsh rates; no prefix means standard England and Northern Ireland rates apply.
NT means no tax is deducted from that income at all - it's unusual and normally only applied by HMRC in specific circumstances.
HMRC updates your code whenever your estimated income, benefits or allowances change - for example starting a company car, receiving the Marriage Allowance, or having a previous underpayment added on.
£12,570 for the year, applied evenly across your pay periods - so roughly £1,047.50 a month or £241.73 a week is tax-free before the rest is taxed under PAYE.
Contact HMRC to check - an incorrect code can mean you're paying too much or too little tax without it being obvious from your payslip alone, and this tool only explains what a code means rather than confirming it's correct for you.
Yes - if you have more than one job or pension, each one gets its own tax code, and typically only your main income carries the full 1257L allowance while the others use BR, D0 or a similar code with no allowance of their own.
These results are estimates for general guidance and are not financial advice. Always confirm important figures with an official source.
Rates last reviewed: 2 October 2026 · Built around the 2026/27 UK tax year
Powered by Toolvan