Calculate your monthly student loan deductions based on your UK salary and repayment plan.
Repayment Summary
Repayment Rate:9% over threshold
Yearly Deduction:£279.00
Monthly Deduction:£23.00
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About the UK Student Loan Repayment Calculator
A UK student loan is not really a debt in the ordinary sense. You do not repay a fixed instalment, you cannot be chased for arrears if your income falls, and after a set number of years whatever is left is written off. What you actually pay is a percentage of everything you earn above a threshold, deducted through payroll like a tax. That makes two questions worth answering precisely: how much comes out of each payslip, and whether you will ever clear the balance at all. This calculator answers the first exactly, including a detail most tools get wrong. Your employer does not take your annual repayment and divide it by twelve. It applies a separate monthly threshold to that month is pay and then rounds the result down to whole pounds. On a £33,000 salary on Plan 1 the annual arithmetic suggests £45.75 a month; the figure on your payslip is £45. The thresholds also changed this April, as they do every April. Plan 2 rose to £29,385 and Plan 4 to £33,795, so any calculator still showing £27,295 or £31,395 is a year out of date and will overstate what you owe by roughly £188 a year.
Mathematical Formula & Logic
The calculation has three inputs: which plan you are on, what you earn, and how often you are paid. Your plan depends on when and where you started studying, not on how much you borrowed. Plan 1 covers English and Welsh students who started before September 2012, and Northern Irish students. Plan 2 covers English and Welsh students who started between September 2012 and July 2023, which makes it the most common plan in circulation. Plan 4 is for Scottish students. Plan 5 covers English students who started in September 2023 or later. A Postgraduate Loan is separate and can run alongside any of the others. The annual thresholds are £26,900 for Plan 1, £29,385 for Plan 2, £33,795 for Plan 4, £25,000 for Plan 5 and £21,000 for a Postgraduate Loan. Above the threshold you repay 9% of the excess on Plans 1, 2, 4 and 5, and 6% on a Postgraduate Loan. Nothing is due on income below the threshold, and there is no upper cap — the deduction keeps rising with your salary indefinitely. The monthly figure is calculated separately rather than derived. Each plan has a published monthly threshold, which is the annual figure rounded down rather than divided precisely: £26,900 divided by twelve is £2,241.67, but the monthly threshold is £2,241. Your employer subtracts that from your gross pay for the month, takes the percentage, and rounds down to whole pounds. This is why your deduction can vary between months if your pay does, and why a bonus month costs you more.
Step-by-Step Example
Three worked examples, the first two taken directly from HMRC guidance so you can check them against the source.
Example 1: Plan 1 on £33,000. Your monthly gross pay is £2,750. The Plan 1 monthly threshold is £2,241, so the excess is £509. Nine per cent of £509 is £45.81, and your employer rounds that down, so £45 appears on your payslip. Over a year the annual calculation gives £33,000 minus £26,900, which is £6,100, and 9% of that is £549. The monthly figures do not quite sum to the annual figure because of the rounding, and that is normal rather than an error.
Example 2: Plan 4 on £36,000. Monthly pay is £3,000 and the Plan 4 threshold is £2,816, leaving £184. Nine per cent is £16.56, deducted as £16. Note how much smaller this is than Plan 1 on a higher salary — the Scottish threshold is nearly £7,000 higher, so far less of your income is caught.
Example 3: Plan 2 on £35,000, the most common situation. The annual threshold is £29,385, so £5,615 of your income is above it. Nine per cent is £505.35 a year, or £42 a month once the monthly threshold and rounding are applied. Under the old £27,295 threshold the same salary would have shown £693.45 a year — nearly £190 more. If you have been using an out-of-date calculator, this is the size of the difference.
Reference Data & Values
label
value
Plan 1 — pre-2012 England and Wales, and Northern Ireland
£26,900 a year (£2,241 a month) at 9%
Plan 2 — England and Wales, 2012 to 2023
£29,385 a year (£2,448 a month) at 9%
Plan 4 — Scotland
£33,795 a year (£2,816 a month) at 9%
Plan 5 — England, from September 2023
£25,000 a year (£2,083 a month) at 9%
Postgraduate Loan
£21,000 a year (£1,750 a month) at 6%
Income below your threshold
No repayment due at all
Monthly deduction
Rounded down to whole pounds by your employer
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on when and where you started your course, not on how much you borrowed. Plan 1 if you started in England or Wales before September 2012, or studied in Northern Ireland. Plan 2 if you started in England or Wales between September 2012 and July 2023. Plan 4 if you studied in Scotland. Plan 5 if you started in England in September 2023 or later. A Postgraduate Loan sits alongside whichever of these applies. If you are unsure, your online repayment account states it.
Because your employer applies a monthly threshold, not a twelfth of the annual one, and rounds the result down to whole pounds. The monthly thresholds are published separately and are slightly lower than a precise twelfth — £2,241 rather than £2,241.67 on Plan 1. Between the different threshold and the rounding, the monthly figure is usually a little below annual divided by twelve, and the two will not reconcile exactly over a year.
For most people, no, and this is the most consequential decision on this page. The balance is written off after a set period regardless of how much is left, so if you are never going to clear it before write-off, every voluntary pound is simply money given away. Overpaying only helps if you would otherwise repay the whole balance plus interest before the write-off date, which generally means high earnings and a relatively small loan. Work out whether you are on course to clear it before deciding.
Yes, immediately and automatically. Repayments are taken only from income above the threshold, so if your pay falls below it in a given month, nothing is deducted that month. There is no arrears process, no default, and no effect on your credit file. This is the main sense in which a student loan behaves like a tax rather than a commercial debt.
Each employer applies the threshold to the pay it gives you, independently of the other. So if you earn £1,000 a month from one job and £800 from another, neither exceeds the Plan 1 monthly threshold and nothing is deducted from either — even though your combined income is £21,600 a year. This is a genuine quirk of the payroll system. If you complete a Self Assessment return, HMRC will assess your combined income for the year instead.
Yes. Interest accrues on the balance regardless of whether you are earning above the threshold, and regardless of whether you are working at all. This is why balances often grow rather than shrink for people on lower incomes. It also matters less than it appears, because the write-off applies to whatever is outstanding — a balance that grows and is then written off costs you nothing beyond what you repaid along the way.
Yes, in the month you receive it. Because the threshold is applied per pay period, a bonus pushes that month is gross pay well above the monthly threshold and 9% of the excess is deducted. If your annual income still ends up below the annual threshold, you can ask for a refund at the end of the tax year. Most people who are consistently above the threshold will not be due one.
Not double, but they do stack. You repay 6% of income above the £21,000 Postgraduate threshold and, separately, 9% above the threshold for your undergraduate plan. Someone on Plan 2 earning £35,000 pays 6% of £14,000 plus 9% of £5,615, which is £840 plus £505.35. The two deductions are calculated independently and both appear on your payslip.