Plan your loan.
Student Loan Repayment Calculator
Every UK plan, updated for the 2026/27 tax year
How you're paid
Where you pay Income Tax
Pay and deductions
Interest
Future assumptions (Payoff tab)
| Tax year | Salary | Repaid | Interest | Balance |
|---|
You can't switch plans: yours is set by where you lived and when your course started. Payslip amounts, rounded down as payroll does.
Find your plan
A few quick questions. Your plan is on your payslip and in your online Student Loans Company account too.
Plan rates for 2026/27
Thresholds apply 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027. Interest applies 1 September 2026 to 31 August 2027.
| Plan | Yearly threshold | Monthly | You repay | Interest now | Written off |
|---|
Plan 2 interest slides from RPI (4.1%) at £29,385 up to RPI + 3% at £52,885, capped at 6% this year. Plan 1 and 4 use the lower of RPI or Bank Rate + 1%. Write-off counts from the April after you leave your course; older Plan 1 (before 2006) and Plan 4 (before 2007) loans can instead be written off at age 65. Source: gov.uk.
Estimate your balance
A ballpark from 2026/27 England funding: £9,790 tuition plus the midpoint of the Maintenance Loan range, per year. Your real balance, including interest added while studying, is in your online Student Loans Company account.
Years of loans taken
Where you lived while studying
Why you can trust this calculator
Every threshold, tax band and interest rate in the tool comes from official 2026/27 sources: HMRC's rates and thresholds for employers, GOV.UK and the Department for Education's interest rate announcement. Payslip figures use the same rounding payroll software uses, and we checked the results against worked examples in official guidance. Long-range payoff dates depend on assumptions you can change, so read those as estimates rather than promises.
Open your payslip and there it is: a line called "student loan" taking a slice of your pay. The rule behind it is short. You repay a percentage of what you earn above a threshold, and your plan decides the threshold. What the rule does not tell you is how long it will take, how much you will end up handing over, or whether the whole thing will be cancelled before you finish.
That is what this student loan repayment calculator UK page is for. It covers every plan (Plan 1, Plan 2, Plan 4, Plan 5 and the Postgraduate Loan), it uses the 2026/27 figures, and it works out your monthly repayment, your payoff or write-off date, your take-home pay and how your plan stacks up against the others. The calculator sits just above this guide. Pick your plan, enter your salary and press Calculate. The rest of this page explains what every part does, so you know exactly what you are looking at.
What this student loan repayment calculator does
It is one tool with four jobs, and each job has its own tab once you press Calculate.
- Repayment. What comes off your pay each month, week or year at your salary.
- Payoff. When the loan is cleared or written off, how much you repay in total and how much interest gets added. In other words, a student loan payoff calculator and a student loan write off calculator in the same place.
- Compare. Your salary run through all five plans side by side, so you can see what the other plans would have asked of you.
- Take-home. Income Tax, National Insurance and student loan repayment together, which makes it a student loan take home pay calculator too.
Nothing you type is sent anywhere. The sums happen in your browser, and when you close the page they are gone. If you want a student loan calculator UK graduates can use without handing over an email address first, this is it.
Student loan calculator 2026: what changed this year
If you used a calculator last year, some of its numbers are now out of date. These are the changes that matter for the 2026/27 tax year, which runs from 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027.
- Plan 5 repayments started in April 2026, with a threshold of £25,000.
- The Plan 1, Plan 2 and Plan 4 thresholds all went up (see the table below).
- Interest rates were reset on 1 September 2026 using March 2026 RPI of 4.1%. Plan 2 and Postgraduate Loan interest is capped at 6% until 31 August 2027.
- The Plan 2 threshold is frozen at £29,385 from April 2027 to April 2030, instead of rising with inflation.
- The Plan 1 threshold is due to rise to £28,005 from April 2027, as announced by the Department for Education.
| Plan | 2025/26 | 2026/27 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan 1 | £26,065 | £26,900 | +£835 |
| Plan 2 | £28,470 | £29,385 | +£915 |
| Plan 4 | £32,745 | £33,795 | +£1,050 |
| Plan 5 | Not yet repaying | £25,000 | New plan |
| Postgraduate | £21,000 | £21,000 | No change |
Annual repayment thresholds. Source: HMRC rates and thresholds for employers.
The calculator already includes the announced 2027 changes when it projects your payoff date, so a long-range result will not quietly assume the wrong threshold.
How to use this student loan calculator, step by step
The tool looks busier than it is. Only two things are compulsory, your plan and your salary. Everything else is there for people who want a sharper answer.
Step 1: Pick your repayment plan
Across the top of the form there are five buttons: Plan 1, Plan 2, Plan 4, Plan 5 and Postgrad. Tap the one that matches your loan. The colour of the whole tool changes with your choice, and the line of text under the buttons says who that plan is meant for, which is a handy double-check.
Not sure which one is yours? Press Not sure which? and answer four short questions: what type of loan you have, where you lived when you applied, when your course started, and whether you also took out a postgraduate loan. The tool names the most likely plan and a button applies it for you. Your own records beat any quiz though, so if you can, confirm the plan in your Student Loans Company online account or on your payslip.
Step 2: Say whether you also have a Postgraduate Loan
If you borrowed a Master's or Doctoral loan from Student Finance England or Wales, switch on I also have a Postgraduate Loan. The 6% above £21,000 is worked out on top of your undergraduate repayment, because the two are collected side by side. If your only loan is the postgraduate one, choose Postgrad in the plan row and the switch disappears.
Step 3: Enter your salary
Type your yearly pay before tax, drag the slider (it runs from £0 to £120,000) or tap one of the quick buttons for £25k, £30k, £40k, £55k and £75k. The summary card under the slider updates straight away. It shows the threshold for your plan, the monthly payslip threshold, the interest rate and the number of years until write-off, so you get the key rules before you have pressed anything.
Use gross pay, meaning your salary before tax, National Insurance and pension. If you get a one-off bonus, leave it out of this box. It has its own field in More options.
Step 4: Open More options for a sharper answer
The purple More options button opens a panel of extras. A small number on the button counts how many settings you have changed from the defaults.
| Option | What it does | Change it if |
|---|---|---|
| Employed or self-employed | Employed works out repayments pay period by pay period, the way your employer's payroll does. Self-employed switches to the yearly Self Assessment method and adds Class 4 National Insurance. | You are a sole trader or freelancer. |
| Where you pay Income Tax | Chooses England, Wales and Northern Ireland bands or Scottish bands. It changes your take-home figure but not the loan repayment itself. | You live in Scotland. |
| Pension (salary sacrifice) | Takes a percentage of your pay into a pension before tax, National Insurance and the loan are worked out. For self-employed users it only reduces Income Tax. | Your employer runs a salary sacrifice scheme. |
| One-off bonus | Adds a bonus in a single month and shows how much extra your loan takes in that month. | You expect a bonus this tax year. |
| Marriage Allowance | Applies the £252 tax saving. It switches itself off when your income is too high for it to apply. | Your partner has transferred part of their allowance to you. |
| Use my own interest rate | Replaces the plan rate on undergraduate loans with the rate shown in your Student Loans Company account. | You know your exact rate. |
| Yearly pay rise | Raises your salary every April in the Payoff projection. The default is 3%. | You expect faster or slower progression. |
| Inflation (RPI) from 2027 | Drives future interest rates and thresholds beyond the figures already announced. The default is 3%. | You want a cautious or optimistic scenario. |
| Investment return | Used only for the overpay versus invest comparison. The default is 5%. | You are weighing up extra payments. |
Step 5: Press Calculate
Until you press Calculate the results stay hidden, so you are not staring at an answer to a question you have not finished asking. Press it and the results open (on a phone the page scrolls down to them). From then on everything updates live as you change plan, salary or options, so you can drag the slider and watch the numbers move. Reset puts every setting back to its default and tucks the results away again.
Monthly pay is £2,916.67. The Plan 2 monthly threshold is £2,448.75, so you are £467.92 over. Nine per cent of that is £42.11, and payroll rounds down to £42. Over twelve months that is £504, or 1.4% of your pay. Select Plan 2, type 35,000, press Calculate and the Repayment tab shows exactly that.
Understanding your results: the four tabs
The Repayment tab
The big number is what your loan takes from your pay, and you can flip it between Month, Year and Week. Underneath you will see your effective rate, which is the share of your total pay that goes on the loan across the year, and the total for the tax year.
The bar called How it's worked out shows where your pay sits against the threshold and states the sum: the amount you are over the threshold times 9% (or 6% for a Postgraduate Loan). Below it are three extras:
- Take-home after tax, NI and loan. Your monthly pay once everything is taken off.
- Your loan outlook. A one-line verdict such as "Written off 2056". Tap it and you jump to the Payoff tab.
- The extra £1,000 line. It tells you what each additional £1,000 of salary adds to your monthly repayment. On Plan 2 above the threshold that is £7.50 a month, which is a useful reality check before a pay negotiation.
A small note repeats the payslip rule (and mentions your bonus month if you added one), and the Copy result button copies a short summary you can paste into a message or a note.
The Payoff tab
This is the tab most people come back to. It has three boxes to fill in:
- Balance. What you owe now. The figure is in your Student Loans Company online account. If you do not know it, press Estimate, choose how many years of loans you took (one to five) and whether you lived with parents, away from home or in London. The estimator adds the 2026/27 tuition fee loan of £9,790 a year to the middle of the maintenance loan range for each year. It is a ballpark for people who have not looked yet. Your real balance will be different because interest has been added since you started.
- Repaying from. The April your repayments began, or will begin. This sets your write-off date.
- Extra / month. Any voluntary amount you would pay on top of your normal repayments. Leave it at £0 to see the baseline.
If you switched on the Postgraduate Loan, a second balance box appears for that loan.
The headline says Paid off in followed by a month and year if you clear the loan, or Written off in followed by the year and the amount that gets cancelled if you do not. Next to it you get the total you repay, the interest added, and the same total in today's money, which means future payments reduced by your inflation assumption so you are comparing like with like.
The balance chart below shows your debt year by year (switch to Table for the numbers, or hover over the line for a single year). The coloured box at the bottom is the verdict. Green means you are on track to clear the loan, amber means it is a close call, and red means it will probably be written off. Type an amount into Extra / month and the verdict also compares overpaying with investing the same money.
The Compare tab
Your salary, run through all five plans at once, with a bar for each. Your own plan is outlined. It is the quickest way to see why a friend on a different plan pays a different amount on the same salary. You cannot switch plans (your plan is fixed by where you lived and when you started), but the comparison explains a lot.
The Take-home tab
A stacked bar and a table show where your pay goes: Income Tax, National Insurance, student loan, pension and what is left. You get monthly and yearly figures plus the percentage of your pay you keep. If you chose Scotland, Scottish tax bands are used.
The Plan rates button
Top right of the tool, this opens a reference table with every plan's yearly and monthly threshold, repayment percentage, interest rate and write-off period. Handy if you want to check a figure without leaving the page.
What student loan plan am I on?
Your plan depends on where you lived when you applied and when your course started. It does not depend on where you studied, so a student from Wales at an English university is still on a Welsh plan.
| Plan | Who is on it | Threshold 2026/27 | You repay | Interest from 1 Sept 2026 | Written off |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plan 1 | England and Wales, courses starting before 1 September 2012. Northern Ireland, any start year. | £26,900 | 9% | 4.1% | 25 years |
| Plan 2 | England, 1 September 2012 to 31 July 2023. Wales, from 1 September 2012. | £29,385 | 9% | 4.1% to 6% | 30 years |
| Plan 4 | Scotland (loans from SAAS). | £33,795 | 9% | 4.1% | 30 years |
| Plan 5 | England, courses starting on or after 1 August 2023. | £25,000 | 9% | 4.1% | 40 years |
| Postgraduate | Master's or Doctoral loans from England or Wales. | £21,000 | 6% | 6% (capped) | 30 years |
Postgraduate loans from Scotland are repaid as Plan 4, and from Northern Ireland as Plan 1.
Wales did not follow England onto Plan 5. Welsh students who started after August 2023 are still on Plan 2. A Postgraduate Loan never replaces your undergraduate plan. It runs alongside it.
The surest way to check is your Student Loans Company online account, and your payslip usually names the plan too. If neither is to hand, the Not sure which? quiz in the calculator gets you to a sensible answer in about ten seconds.
Plan 1, Plan 2, Plan 4, Plan 5 and Postgraduate calculators
Plenty of people search for a calculator for their own plan. A good UK student loan calculator should handle all of them, and the tool above does. Choose the button and the threshold, interest rate and write-off period change with it. Here is what to expect on each, using a £40,000 salary as the yardstick (employed, 2026/27, no pension).
Plan 1 student loan calculator
Plan 1 has the lowest write-off period of the undergraduate plans at 25 years, and interest of 4.1% this year. At £40,000 you repay £98 a month. The threshold is due to rise to £28,005 in April 2027, and the Payoff tab already allows for that. Some older Plan 1 loans are written off at age 65 instead, which the tool does not model, so check your account if you took your first loan before September 2006.
Plan 2 student loan calculator
The most common plan, and the one where the Payoff tab matters most, because many Plan 2 borrowers never clear the balance. At £40,000 you repay £79 a month. Interest slides with your income (more on that below), and the threshold stays at £29,385 until April 2030. Welsh borrowers from 2012 are on this plan too.
Plan 4 student loan calculator
Scottish loans have the highest threshold, £33,795, so at £40,000 you repay £46 a month. Tick Scotland under More options if you want the Take-home tab to use Scottish Income Tax bands. The balance estimator leaves tuition out for Plan 4, because tuition for Scottish students is usually paid by SAAS rather than borrowed.
Plan 5 student loan calculator
Plan 5 has the lowest undergraduate threshold, £25,000, so at £40,000 you repay £112 a month, more than on any other undergraduate plan at the same salary. The trade-offs are interest at RPI only (4.1% now) and a 40-year write-off period. Because less interest builds up, a lot more Plan 5 borrowers are likely to clear their loan than Plan 2 borrowers. The scenario table further down shows the difference.
Postgraduate loan calculator UK
The Postgraduate Loan takes 6% of income over £21,000, so on its own at £40,000 it takes £95 a month. Most people with one also have an undergraduate loan, in which case both are taken at once. Switch on the Postgraduate Loan toggle and the tool adds the two, then projects each balance separately in the Payoff tab. Interest is 6% this year because of the cap, and the loan is written off after 30 years.
Student loan threshold 2026/27
The threshold is the amount you can earn before repayments start. Because payroll runs weekly or monthly, HMRC publishes a threshold for each pay period as well as for the year. The monthly figure is the yearly figure divided by twelve and rounded down to the penny, and your repayment is rounded down to the whole pound.
| Plan | Per year | Per month | Per week |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan 1 | £26,900 | £2,241.66 | £517.30 |
| Plan 2 | £29,385 | £2,448.75 | £565.09 |
| Plan 4 | £33,795 | £2,816.25 | £649.90 |
| Plan 5 | £25,000 | £2,083.33 | £480.76 |
| Postgraduate | £21,000 | £1,750.00 | £403.84 |
These apply from 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027. Source: HMRC rates and thresholds for employers 2026 to 2027.
What happens next year? Plan 1 is due to move to £28,005 in April 2027. Plan 2 stays put until April 2030. Plan 5 is due to start rising with inflation from April 2027, and the Postgraduate threshold has stayed at £21,000 for years with no change announced. Where a figure is confirmed, the calculator uses it. Where it is not, it uses the inflation assumption you set in More options.
How much student loan do I repay a month?
The rule is the same on every undergraduate plan: take your pay for the period, subtract the threshold for that period, and multiply what is left by 9%. For a Postgraduate Loan the rate is 6%. If your pay is below the threshold, you repay nothing.
Two things surprise people. First, the amount you owe plays no part in the sum. Someone with £25,000 outstanding and someone with £90,000 outstanding pay the same on the same salary. Second, the test is made pay period by pay period. A bonus can push a single month over the threshold even if your yearly pay is below it, and if that happens you can ask for a refund after the end of the tax year.
| Salary | Plan 1 | Plan 2 | Plan 4 | Plan 5 | Postgraduate only |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £25,000 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £20 |
| £30,000 | £23 | £4 | £0 | £37 | £45 |
| £35,000 | £60 | £42 | £9 | £75 | £70 |
| £40,000 | £98 | £79 | £46 | £112 | £95 |
| £50,000 | £173 | £154 | £121 | £187 | £145 |
| £60,000 | £248 | £229 | £196 | £262 | £195 |
Monthly repayment, employed, 2026/27, payslip method. A Postgraduate Loan on top of an undergraduate plan is added to these figures.
Look at the £30,000 row and you will see how much the plan matters. Plan 5 takes £37 a month, Plan 1 takes £23, Plan 2 takes just £4 and Plan 4 takes nothing at all. The same salary, four very different payslips.
How much will I pay back on my student loan?
This is the question most people really want answered, and the honest reply is that it depends far more on your future pay than on how much you borrowed. Repayments are a slice of income, so two people with the same balance can end up paying completely different totals.
To show it, we ran the same £45,000 balance through the Payoff tab at different salaries. Pay rises are 3% a year, RPI is 3% after the announced figures, and repayments run from October 2026. The Plan 2 borrower has been repaying since April 2025 and the Plan 5 borrower since April 2026.
| Plan | Starting salary | Repaid from now | Interest added | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plan 2 | £28,000 | £4,100 | £64,300 | Written off in 2055 (about £105,200 cancelled) |
| Plan 2 | £35,000 | £32,100 | £77,600 | Written off in 2055 (about £90,500 cancelled) |
| Plan 2 | £45,000 | £72,400 | £87,600 | Written off in 2055 (about £60,200 cancelled) |
| Plan 2 | £60,000 | £83,500 | £38,500 | Cleared in March 2047 |
| Plan 5 | £30,000 | £31,700 | £81,100 | Written off in 2066 (about £94,400 cancelled) |
| Plan 5 | £45,000 | £68,600 | £23,600 | Cleared in July 2052 |
| Plan 5 | £60,000 | £57,100 | £12,100 | Cleared in May 2041 |
Balance £45,000 today. Projections, rounded to the nearest £100, for illustration only.
A few things stand out:
- At £28,000 the Plan 2 borrower repays about £4,100 in total, while the balance more than doubles before it is cancelled. Interest outruns repayments for decades.
- At £60,000 the same loan is cleared in March 2047, at a total cost close to double what was owed on day one.
- On £45,000, a Plan 5 borrower clears the loan (July 2052) while a Plan 2 borrower on the same pay does not. Lower interest and a longer term make the difference in this scenario.
Plan 2 balance over time, starting from £45,000
- Starting salary £28,000
- Starting salary £35,000
- Starting salary £60,000
None of this is a forecast of your life. It is arithmetic on assumptions, which is exactly why the calculator lets you change them. Try a faster pay rise or a lower inflation rate and watch the outcome flip.
How is student loan interest calculated?
Interest is added to your balance. It does not change what you pay each month, because the monthly repayment is set by income alone. What interest does is decide how quickly the balance grows, and so whether you clear the loan or reach the write-off date first.
Rates are based on RPI inflation measured in March and reset every 1 September. March 2026 RPI was 4.1%, which sets the rates below until 31 August 2027.
| Plan | How the rate is set | From 1 Sept 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Plan 1 | The lower of RPI or Bank Rate plus 1% | 4.1% |
| Plan 2 | RPI at or below £29,385, rising to RPI plus 3% at £52,885, with a 6% cap until 31 August 2027 | 4.1% to 6% |
| Plan 4 | The lower of RPI or Bank Rate plus 1% | 4.1% |
| Plan 5 | RPI only | 4.1% |
| Postgraduate | RPI plus 3%, with a 6% cap until 31 August 2027 | 6% |
The Plan 2 sliding scale
Plan 2 is the only plan where your pay changes your interest rate. Without the cap you would pay RPI at £29,385, climbing in a straight line to RPI plus 3% at £52,885. With the 2026/27 cap of 6%, the rate stops climbing once you earn about £44,300.
Plan 2 interest rate by salary, 2026/27
- Rate you actually pay (6% cap)
- Rate without the cap
| Salary | Plan 2 interest rate |
|---|---|
| £29,385 or less | 4.1% |
| £35,000 | 4.8% |
| £40,000 | 5.5% |
| About £44,300 and above | 6.0% |
How the calculator applies interest
The Payoff tab adds interest to your balance month by month at one twelfth of the annual rate, and it recalculates your Plan 2 rate as your salary grows. The Student Loans Company works to the day, so expect small differences against your own statement. If you know your exact rate, enter it under Use my own interest rate. Interest keeps building even when you earn below the threshold, so a low salary does not freeze the balance.
When will my student loan be written off?
Every plan has an end date. Whatever you still owe on that date is cancelled, interest included. The clock starts in the April after you were first due to repay.
| Plan | Written off after | Exceptions |
|---|---|---|
| Plan 1 | 25 years | Age 65 if your first loan was paid before 1 September 2006 |
| Plan 2 | 30 years | None |
| Plan 4 | 30 years | Age 65 or 30 years, whichever is sooner, if your first loan was paid before 1 August 2007 |
| Plan 5 | 40 years | None |
| Postgraduate | 30 years | None |
Set the Repaying from box in the Payoff tab and the calculator counts forward to your write-off date, which makes it a quick student loan write off calculator. Say you started repaying in April 2025 on Plan 2. Add 30 years and the loan is cancelled in April 2055. The age-65 rules are not built into the tool, so if they apply to you, trust your Student Loans Company account over the projection.
This is why so many Plan 2 borrowers never clear their balance. If your pay never climbs far enough, the write-off date arrives first. It also explains why overpaying can backfire, which we will get to shortly.
Student loan payoff calculator: how the date is worked out
Behind the Payoff tab is a month-by-month projection. Each month it does the same four things:
- adds a month of interest at the right rate for your plan and income;
- takes your repayment, using the threshold for that tax year (the announced figures where they exist, your inflation assumption after that);
- adds any extra amount you typed in;
- raises your salary by your pay rise assumption every April.
It stops when the balance reaches zero or when the write-off date arrives, and then reports the result. The "today's money" figure shrinks each future payment by your inflation assumption, because £100 paid in 2045 is worth less than £100 paid now. That makes it the fairest way to judge what the loan really costs you.
A projection like this cannot know your future job, so give it a few goes. Run it with your expected pay rise, then with half of it, then with none. If the outcome barely changes, you can relax. If it flips from "cleared" to "written off", you know your plan hinges on how your career goes.
Should I overpay my student loan? Student loan vs invest calculator
The short answer is: only if you are going to clear the loan anyway. Paying extra on a loan that would have been cancelled hands over money for nothing.
| Example | Without extra | With £100 a month extra |
|---|---|---|
| Plan 1, £20,000 balance, £50,000 salary | Cleared August 2036. Total repaid £23,500, of which interest £3,500. | Cleared March 2033. Total repaid £22,300, of which interest £2,300. |
| Plan 2, £45,000 balance, £30,000 salary | Never cleared. Repays £12,000 in total and about £101,500 is written off in 2055. | Still never cleared. Repays £46,200 in total and about £43,500 is still written off. |
Projections with 3% pay rises and 3% RPI. The Plan 1 borrower has been repaying since April 2018.
In the first example, £100 a month brings the finish line forward by about three and a half years and saves roughly £1,300 in interest. That is a sensible use of money if you have nothing more pressing to do with it. In the second, the extra £100 costs £34,200 over the life of the loan and the borrower still reaches the write-off date. Nothing was gained.
How the calculator's verdict works
Type an amount into Extra / month on the Payoff tab. The tool runs your projection twice, with and without the extra payments, and compares them. It also builds two pots of savings from the same total monthly budget and grows them at the investment return you chose (5% by default), so the comparison is fair. The verdict then tells you how much sooner you would finish, how much interest you would save, and whether investing the money at your assumed return looks better. That is why it works as a student loan vs invest calculator as well as a payoff calculator.
Before you overpay anything
- Build an emergency fund first. A voluntary student loan payment is not something you should expect to get back.
- If your employer matches pension contributions, that match is usually better value than a loan overpayment.
- Clear credit cards and other debts charging much higher interest before the student loan.
- There is no penalty for paying early, so you can always overpay later when the picture is clearer.
This is general information, not financial advice. If you are unsure, speak to a regulated adviser.
Student loan take home pay calculator
Your loan is only one of three deductions, and it is rarely the biggest. The Take-home tab puts Income Tax, National Insurance and the loan side by side and tells you what is left. Here are the 2026/27 figures for a Plan 2 borrower in England, employed, with no pension.
| Salary | Gross a month | Income Tax | National Insurance | Student loan | Take-home |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £30,000 | £2,500 | £290 | £116 | £4 | £2,089 |
| £40,000 | £3,333 | £457 | £183 | £79 | £2,614 |
| £50,000 | £4,167 | £624 | £249 | £154 | £3,139 |
| £60,000 | £5,000 | £953 | £268 | £229 | £3,551 |
Monthly figures rounded to the nearest pound, so columns can differ from the total by £1.
The student loan is £4 a month at £30,000 and £229 at £60,000. It is the one deduction that barely exists at the bottom and bites hard further up. If you live in Scotland, tick Scotland in More options and the tax column changes because the bands are different. Pension salary sacrifice, a bonus and Marriage Allowance (worth up to £252 a year) all flow through to the result as well.
Special situations: self-employed, Scotland, bonuses and pensions
Self-employed
You do not have payslips, so HMRC works out the loan repayment from your Self Assessment tax return: 9% of your profit above the threshold for the year, rounded down. Choose Self-employed in More options and the tool switches to that method, with Class 4 National Insurance (6% between £12,570 and £50,270, 2% above) in the take-home figure. The repayment is collected with your tax bill rather than monthly, so the monthly figure the tool shows is just the yearly amount divided by twelve.
Scotland
Scottish Income Tax has six bands instead of three, so your take-home pay differs from the rest of the UK at the same salary. The student loan itself does not change, because it follows your plan, not your tax region. Marriage Allowance also has a lower income limit in Scotland (£43,662 rather than £50,270), and the tool applies it.
Bonuses and overtime
Payroll tests each pay period separately, so a big bonus month can trigger a repayment even if your yearly pay sits under the threshold. Add the bonus in More options and the Repayment tab shows what that month costs you. If your total pay for the year ends up below the threshold, you can ask for a refund once the tax year closes.
Pensions
Contributions through salary sacrifice reduce the pay your loan is calculated on, so they lower your repayment slightly as well as your tax. Other pension arrangements may not. The calculator models salary sacrifice for employed users, and treats contributions as an Income Tax reduction only for the self-employed.
More than one loan, or living abroad
The calculator handles one undergraduate plan plus an optional Postgraduate Loan, which is the usual situation. If you hold two undergraduate plans, you repay 9% over the lowest threshold and the money is split between the loans, so use your account for the exact picture. The tool is designed for people living in the UK. If you move overseas, you need to tell the Student Loans Company, and different thresholds apply.
Student loan myths
| What people say | What is actually true |
|---|---|
| The more I borrowed, the more I repay each month. | Your monthly repayment depends on your income and plan. The balance has no effect on it. |
| A student loan will wreck my credit score. | GOV.UK states that student loans do not appear on credit reports. Lenders may still look at your take-home pay, which the repayment reduces. |
| I will be paying it until I die. | Every plan has a write-off date, 25 to 40 years after your first repayment is due. Some older Plan 1 and Plan 4 loans end at 65. |
| If I earn under the threshold, interest stops. | Interest keeps being added. You simply do not repay anything while your pay is below the threshold. |
| Paying extra always saves money. | Only if you would have cleared the loan anyway. If it is heading for write-off, overpaying just costs you. |
Frequently asked questions
Tap a question to see the answer.
How much student loan do I repay a month?
You repay 9% of what you earn above your plan's threshold, or 6% above £21,000 on a Postgraduate Loan. On a monthly payslip that means 9% of the amount your pay exceeds the monthly threshold (for example £2,448.75 on Plan 2), rounded down to the whole pound. On £35,000 a Plan 2 borrower repays £42 a month, and on £40,000 it is £79. The balance you owe makes no difference to the monthly figure.
What student loan plan am I on?
It depends on where you lived when you applied and when your course started. England and Wales before 1 September 2012 (and Northern Ireland) is Plan 1. England from 1 September 2012 to 31 July 2023, and Wales from 1 September 2012, is Plan 2. Scotland is Plan 4. England from 1 August 2023 is Plan 5. Master's and Doctoral loans from England or Wales are Postgraduate Loans. Your Student Loans Company online account shows your plan for certain.
How much will I pay back on my student loan in total?
There is no fixed figure, because repayments follow your income, not your balance. If your pay stays modest you may repay only a small slice of what you owe before the rest is written off. If your pay climbs you may clear the loan in full, interest included. The Payoff tab projects both outcomes from your salary, pay rise and inflation assumptions, and shows the total repaid and the interest added.
When will my student loan be written off?
Plan 1 loans are written off after 25 years, Plan 2, Plan 4 and Postgraduate Loans after 30 years, and Plan 5 loans after 40 years, counted from the April you were first due to repay. Older Plan 1 loans (first paid before 1 September 2006) are written off at 65, and older Plan 4 loans (before 1 August 2007) at 65 or after 30 years, whichever is sooner. Set the Repaying from box in the Payoff tab and the calculator shows your write-off year.
How is student loan interest calculated?
Interest is based on RPI inflation measured in March and reset each 1 September. For 2026/27 RPI is 4.1%. Plan 1 and Plan 4 charge the lower of RPI or Bank Rate plus 1%, which is 4.1%. Plan 5 charges RPI, so 4.1%. Plan 2 runs from RPI up to RPI plus 3% depending on income, capped at 6% until 31 August 2027. Postgraduate Loans charge RPI plus 3%, also capped at 6%.
Should I overpay my student loan?
Only if you expect to clear the loan before it is written off. If it is heading for write-off anyway, extra payments cost you money without shortening the debt in any way that matters. Type an amount into Extra / month on the Payoff tab and the calculator shows the new payoff date, the interest saved and how that compares with investing the same money. It is a guide, not financial advice.
Does the amount I owe change what I repay each month?
No. Your monthly repayment depends only on your income and your plan. Owing £20,000 or £80,000 makes no difference to the deduction. The balance matters for how long the loan takes to clear and whether you reach the write-off date first.
What is the student loan threshold for 2026/27?
The yearly 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 the Postgraduate Loan. They apply from 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027.
Can I use this as a Plan 1, Plan 2, Plan 4 or Plan 5 calculator?
Yes. This student loan repayment calculator UK page covers every plan. Choose the plan button that matches your loan and the tool switches to that plan's threshold, interest rate and write-off period. Welsh borrowers from 2012 use Plan 2 and Scottish borrowers use Plan 4. The Compare tab shows your salary on every plan at once.
What if I have a Postgraduate Loan as well?
Switch on I also have a Postgraduate Loan. The calculator adds 6% of income over £21,000 to your undergraduate repayment, as payroll does, and projects both loans in the Payoff tab with a second balance box. Postgraduate loans from Scotland and Northern Ireland follow Plan 4 and Plan 1 rules, so choose those plans for them.
Does a student loan affect my credit score or a mortgage application?
GOV.UK says student loans do not appear on credit reports and do not affect your credit score. Mortgage lenders usually look at your take-home pay though, and the monthly deduction lowers it. The Take-home tab shows your pay after tax, National Insurance and the loan.
I am self-employed. How do repayments work?
HMRC works out the repayment from your Self Assessment tax return rather than from payslips. Switch the tool to Self-employed under More options and it uses the yearly method, which is 9% of your profit over the threshold, rounded down, with Class 4 National Insurance included in the take-home figure.
Is this student loan calculator UK tool free, and is my data stored?
It is free to use. The calculations run in your browser and nothing you enter is sent to or stored on our servers.
How accurate are the payoff dates?
The monthly repayment figure follows the payroll method, so it should match your payslip if your pay is steady. Payoff and write-off dates are projections that rely on pay rises, inflation and future thresholds that nobody can know yet. Treat them as a well-informed estimate and change the assumptions to see best and worst cases.
Sources and last updated
Last updated: 7 October 2026. Figures checked against the sources below.
- HMRC: Rates and thresholds for employers 2026 to 2027 (student loan thresholds, Income Tax bands, National Insurance)
- Department for Education: Student loans interest rates and repayment threshold announcement
- GOV.UK: Repaying your student loan
- GOV.UK: When you start repaying
- GOV.UK: What you pay
- GOV.UK: When your student loan gets written off or cancelled
- GOV.UK: Marriage Allowance
This calculator and guide are for general information only. They are not financial, tax or legal advice, and projections rely on assumptions that may not match your future circumstances. Your Student Loans Company account and your payslip are the final word on what you owe and repay. Rates and thresholds are updated each tax year.
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