Student loan repayments and Self Assessment
Student loan repayments follow income, not the size of the outstanding balance. Official guidance is explicit: the amount you owe has no impact on how much you repay each year. What changes the repayment is your plan type, the year’s threshold, and whether the money is collected through PAYE, through a Self Assessment return, or both. This guide is about that official method, and about the year-specific thresholds we use in the student loan repayment calculator.
Plans, rates and official thresholds
You repay 9% of income over the threshold if you are on Plan 1, 2, 4 or 5, and 6% of income over the threshold if you are on a Postgraduate Loan. If you have a Postgraduate Loan and another plan, official guidance is that you repay both: 6% over the postgraduate threshold and 9% over the lowest undergraduate-plan threshold you have.
The thresholds are not the same in every tax year, and they are not the same for every plan. For 2026/27 the official employer rates page, updated on 1 September 2026, lists Plan 1 at £26,900 a year, Plan 2 at £29,385, Plan 4 at £33,795, Plan 5 at £25,000 and the Postgraduate Loan at £21,000. For 2025/26 the official employer rates page, updated on 1 March 2026, lists Plan 1 at £26,065, Plan 2 at £28,470, Plan 4 at £32,745 and the Postgraduate Loan at £21,000. It does not list a Plan 5 threshold for 2025/26. We therefore do not invent a 2025/26 Plan 5 figure; the calculator will say so if you pick that combination.
The current “how much you repay” page shows the 2026/27-level thresholds in its table and works a Plan 1 example at £33,000 of income: £33,000 minus £26,900 is £6,100, and 9% of that is £549 for the year. The same page explains that if you are paid monthly, the monthly thresholds are used on each payday, and that you can ask for a refund at the end of the year if your annual income is below the yearly threshold. Interest is charged on the loan even when you are below the threshold; how that interest is set depends on the plan and is outside this guide’s calculator.
If you are employed, self-employed, or both
How you repay depends on whether you are employed, or self-employed, or already need to complete a Self Assessment return for another reason. Employees usually see a deduction on the payslip when a job is above the weekly or monthly threshold. If you have more than one employer, official examples say you only make repayments from jobs that, on their own, are over the threshold — not from combined pay across jobs — when the collection is through PAYE.
If you are self-employed, or you complete a return for another reason, HMRC works out how much you repay each year from the Self Assessment return. The repayments are based on your income for the whole year. If you are also employed, the official method uses combined income for the year. An official example on the “how much you repay” page gives a Plan 1 borrower with £32,000 of self-employment income and £10,000 from a job: combined income of £42,000, minus the Plan 1 yearly threshold of £26,900, leaves £15,100, and 9% of that is £1,359. Any repayments already taken from the salary are then deducted by HMRC.
That combined-income rule is why a Self Assessment repayment can appear even when each job, looked at alone, seemed modest, and why a salary deduction does not always finish the story for someone who also has self-employed profit. It is also why a student loan figure belongs on the return, and on the 31 January payment, rather than in payments on account. The official payments-on-account page says student loan repayments are not in those instalments; they go on the January balancing payment.
What a planning estimate can and cannot do
Our calculator applies the official annual threshold and rate to the income you type, for the year and plan you select, and can add a postgraduate 6% if you tick the box. It does not know your remaining balance, your overseas residency, your weekly pay pattern, or whether a refund is due because a bonus pushed one month over a threshold while the year as a whole stayed below it. It is a repayment estimate, not a statement from the Student Loans Company, and not tax advice.
If you need to send a return, file it online for free on GOV.UK and let HMRC apply the official method to the income you report. Keep payslips and your P60, which official student loan guidance says you will need if you want to get a refund. If you leave the UK for more than three months, the overview page says you must tell the Student Loans Company; that is a separate duty from Self Assessment and is not handled by our tools.
People sometimes confuse this topic with US student loan programmes. GradClear, on a sister dollarfinch.com site, is written for US federal student aid. It is not a source of UK plan thresholds and should not be used for a Self Assessment estimate.
Choosing the right plan, and extra repayments
Using the wrong plan is the fastest way to mis-estimate a repayment, because the official thresholds differ by several thousand pounds. Plan 1, Plan 2, Plan 4 and Plan 5 are not interchangeable labels for “a student loan”. Which plan you are on depends on where and when you studied, and it is shown in your Student Loans Company account and, for employees, in the information you give a new employer on a starter checklist. If you do not know the plan, find out from those official records before you trust a 9% calculation.
You can make extra repayments, official guidance says, in your online account and by card, bank transfer or cheque. Those extra payments reduce the balance; they do not replace the income-based repayment for a year in which your income is over the threshold, unless official guidance for your plan says otherwise in a particular case. Overpayments and refunds have their own official process, which is why payslips and a P60 are worth keeping.
Interest rates on the loan are also official and plan-specific. The “how much you repay” page currently quotes figures such as 4.1% for several plans and a cap of 6% in places for Plan 2, but those interest rates can change and they do not alter the 9% or 6% repayment percentages on income. Our calculator ignores loan interest on purpose, so that a repayment estimate is not confused with a forecast of the outstanding balance.