UK Student Loan Repayment Calculator

Your Student Loan at a glance

How Student Loan repayments work

Student Loan repayments are not based on how much you borrowed or what you still owe. Instead, you repay a fixed percentage of your earnings above a threshold that depends on your repayment plan. If you earn below the threshold for your plan, you repay nothing at all that year.

An undergraduate plan (Plan 1, 2, 4 or 5) is repaid at 9% of earnings above its threshold. A Postgraduate Loan is a separate loan, repaid at 6% of earnings above its own, lower threshold. If you hold both an undergraduate plan and a Postgraduate Loan, the two repayments are worked out independently and added together.

Which Student Loan plan am I on?

• Plan 1: English or Welsh students who started an undergraduate course before 1 September 2012, and most Northern Irish undergraduate borrowers.
• Plan 2: English or Welsh students who started an undergraduate course between 1 September 2012 and 31 July 2023.
• Plan 4: Scottish-domiciled undergraduate borrowers, who moved from Plan 1 to their own Plan 4 threshold from 6 April 2021.
• Plan 5: English students who started an undergraduate course on or after 1 August 2023. Repayments began from 6 April 2026.

Your loan statement, or your account with the Student Loans Company, will show which plan applies to you. This calculator does not determine your plan for you.

Plan 5

For 2026/27 onwards, Plan 5 is repaid in the same way as the other undergraduate plans: 9% of earnings above the Plan 5 threshold.

Postgraduate Loans

A Postgraduate Loan, for a Master's or Doctoral course, is a separate loan from any undergraduate plan and can be repaid at the same time. It has its own, lower threshold, and is repaid at 6% of earnings above that threshold. Having both an undergraduate plan and a Postgraduate Loan does not create a single combined percentage; each loan is calculated on its own threshold and rate, then added together.

Why your payslip may differ

This calculator gives an annual estimate, worked out as if your earnings were spread evenly across the year. Actual PAYE Student Loan deductions are calculated by your employer separately for each pay period, using a pro-rated version of the annual threshold for that period. If your income varies during the year, for example from a bonus, overtime, or a pay rise partway through the year, your actual total deductions can differ from a simple annual calculation, because each pay period is assessed on its own.

Pension contributions and Student Loan repayments

Ordinary pension contributions, whether taken under a net pay arrangement or as relief at source, do not reduce the earnings figure your Student Loan repayment is calculated on. Student Loan repayments are worked out on broadly the same earnings basis as employee National Insurance, not on your earnings after pension contributions.

Salary sacrifice

A genuine salary sacrifice arrangement is different from an ordinary pension contribution: you contractually give up part of your salary in exchange for a non-cash benefit, such as an employer pension contribution, so your actual contractual gross pay is reduced. Because Student Loan repayments are based on your actual earnings, a genuine salary sacrifice arrangement can reduce the earnings figure used for your repayment, whereas an ordinary pension contribution does not.

Student Loan vs Income Tax and National Insurance

A Student Loan repayment is not a tax. It is a separate deduction taken through PAYE alongside Income Tax and National Insurance, calculated on its own threshold and rate, and paid to the Student Loans Company rather than HMRC. Use the Income Tax Calculator and National Insurance Calculator to estimate those deductions separately.

Self-employed users

If you are self-employed, Student Loan repayments are collected through Self Assessment rather than PAYE, based on your Self Assessment tax return figures rather than a simple earnings figure entered here. This calculator is designed around employment/payroll earnings and does not calculate a self-employed Student Loan liability.

Worked examples

Figures below are generated by this calculator's own engine, using 2026/27 thresholds except the Plan 5 example, which always uses 2026/27 thresholds since Plan 5 repayments are £0 before then.