Calculator · 2026/27
Student loan repayment calculator
Repayment is 9% of everything above your plan's threshold — 6% for a postgraduate loan, and the two stack. It is not a tax, but it leaves the same pay on the same day, so for deciding whether a rise is worth taking it behaves exactly like one.
Your result
Every plan threshold for 2026/27
| Plan | Threshold | Rate | On £40,000 | On £60,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plan 1 | £26,900 | 9% | £1,179 | £2,979 |
| Plan 2 | £29,385 | 9% | £955.35 | £2,755.35 |
| Plan 4 | £33,795 | 9% | £558.45 | £2,358.45 |
| Plan 5 | £25,000 | 9% | £1,350 | £3,150 |
| Postgraduate | £21,000 | 6% | £1,140 | £2,340 |
A postgraduate loan is deducted alongside an undergraduate plan, not instead of it — so someone with both pays 15% of income above the higher threshold.
What it does to your marginal rate
This is the part no rate table shows, and the part that decides whether a rise is worth taking.
| Salary | No loan | Plan 2 | Plan 2 + postgraduate |
|---|---|---|---|
| £30,000 | 28% | 37% | 43% |
| £40,000 | 28% | 37% | 43% |
| £55,000 | 42% | 51% | 57% |
| £80,000 | 42% | 51% | 57% |
| £110,000 | 62% | 71% | 77% |
Should you overpay?
This site will not answer that, because it turns on your plan's interest rate, your earnings for the next thirty years and your write-off date, and getting any of those wrong reverses it. What the arithmetic can tell you is the cash-flow shape, and it is the part people miss: repayment is a fixed percentage of income above a threshold, regardless of the balance. Overpaying does not reduce your monthly deduction by a penny. It shortens the period — but only if you would have cleared the balance before write-off. If you would not have, a voluntary overpayment buys nothing at all.
Where £40,000 sits in the system
Every calculator on this site runs on the same thresholds, and the reason a figure surprises people is almost always that it sits near one of them. This is what is closest to the worked example above — the thresholds that decide what the next pound is worth, rather than what the last one was.
£40,000 sits between two things that matter. £6,205 below you is the Plan 4 (Scotland) repayment threshold, and £10,270 above you is the National Insurance upper earnings limit — so this salary is already past one change and approaching another.
| What changes | At | From here | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan 4 (Scotland) repayment threshold | £33,795 | −£6,205 | passed |
| National Insurance upper earnings limit | £50,270 | +£10,270 | ahead |
| Higher rate | £50,271 | +£10,271 | ahead |
| Plan 2 repayment threshold | £29,385 | −£10,615 | passed |
Measured against the 2026/27 parameters for England, Wales & Northern Ireland. Distances are on gross pay before any salary sacrifice, because that is the figure every one of these thresholds is tested against.
- £33,795 — Plan 4 (Scotland) takes 9% of the £6,205 above its threshold. It is not a tax, but it leaves the same pay on the same day.
- £50,270 — Above it your own National Insurance falls from 8% to 2%. That is £10,270 away, and it is the reason the higher rate stings less at the margin than the headline jump suggests.
- £50,271 — Crossing it does not re-tax what you already earn — only the pounds above it move to the higher rate, which is the single most misunderstood thing about UK income tax.
- £29,385 — Plan 2 takes 9% of the £10,615 above its threshold. It is not a tax, but it leaves the same pay on the same day.
What a ten per cent move would do
A swing of ten per cent either way from £40,000 does not cross a single band: the rate on further pay stays at 28% across the whole range from £36,000 to £44,000. That makes this an unusually predictable place to be paid, and it means the arithmetic below scales — a rise of any size in that range is worth the same proportion in your hand.
| If pay moved | Gross | Take-home | Change | Next £100 taxed at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| −10% | £36,000 | £29,439.60 | −£2,880 | 28% |
| −5% | £38,000 | £30,879.60 | −£1,440 | 28% |
| +5% | £42,000 | £33,759.60 | +£1,440 | 28% |
| +10% | £44,000 | £35,199.60 | +£2,880 | 28% |
And what a pension contribution would buy
There is no threshold within reach below £40,000, so a pension contribution here is not about ducking under anything — it is simply the ordinary trade. Sacrificing £2,000 costs you £1,440 in take-home, because 28% of it was never going to reach you anyway, and puts the full £2,000 into the pot. That is £2,000 of saving for £1,440 of spending power — a ratio of 1.39 to one, and it is the same ratio for every pound until the next band.
Student loans on the same figure
A student loan is not a tax and it is not in any headline rate, but it leaves the same pay packet on the same day — so it belongs in any figure used to make a decision. This is what each plan takes at the worked example above.
Every one of the five repayment thresholds is behind this salary, so whichever plan you are on, you are repaying. Which plan you are on is not a choice, and the difference between them at this salary is £581.55 a year, so it is worth knowing which one your payslip is deducting.
| Plan | Starts at | Repaid a year | A month | Your next £100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Postgraduate Loan | £21,000 | £1,140 | £95 | 34% |
| Plan 5 | £25,000 | £1,350 | £112.50 | 37% |
| Plan 1 | £26,900 | £1,179 | £98.25 | 37% |
| Plan 2 | £29,385 | £955.35 | £79.61 | 37% |
| Plan 4 (Scotland) | £33,795 | £558.45 | £46.54 | 37% |
A postgraduate loan is repaid alongside an undergraduate one rather than instead of it, so someone with both pays both.
One engine behind all eleven
Every calculator on this site runs the same tax engine, and the engine file your browser downloads is byte-identical to the one that generated these pages — a test asserts it, because two implementations of a tax rule is one too many. So the figures here cannot disagree with the salary tables, the hourly pages or any other calculator: they are the same arithmetic asked a different question. The method page sets out how the bands are discovered rather than typed, and sources lists every parameter with the government page and the date it was read from.
Questions people actually ask
How much student loan will I repay on £40,000?
£955.35 a year on Plan 2 — 9% of the £10,615 above the £29,385 threshold. On Plan 1 it is £1,179, and on Plan 5 £1,350.
Which student loan plan am I on?
Broadly: Plan 1 for English or Welsh undergraduate courses started before September 2012, and for Northern Ireland; Plan 2 between September 2012 and July 2023; Plan 5 from August 2023; Plan 4 if you studied in Scotland. A postgraduate loan is separate and repaid alongside. Your payslip shows which plan your employer is deducting.
Do repayments stop automatically when the loan is cleared?
They stop when the balance is cleared or written off, but the Student Loans Company tells your employer through HMRC and there is a lag. Overpaying at the end of a loan is common, and it is refundable.
What this calculation assumes
- 2026/27 rates for England, Wales & Northern Ireland.
- One employment, paid through payroll, taxed on the standard code with no adjustments carried in.
- Employment income only — no dividends, savings interest, rental or self-employment income.
- No taxable benefits in kind, no company car, no unpaid leave.
- National Insurance category A: the standard case for an employee over 21 and under State Pension age.
- Income Tax is annual, but National Insurance is charged per pay period — a large one-off bonus can pay more NI than this annual view shows.
- No student or postgraduate loan repayment.
- No salary sacrifice and no workplace pension contribution.