--- title: "UK Income Tax Bands & Personal Allowance 2026-27 Explained | PayByRoster" description: "UK income tax bands and the Personal Allowance for 2026-27 — the £12,570 tax-free allowance, 20%/40%/45% rates, the £100,000 taper (the 60% tax trap), and worked examples." lang: en json-ld: | { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Article", "headline": "UK Income Tax Bands & Personal Allowance 2026-27 Explained | PayByRoster", "description": "UK income tax bands and the Personal Allowance for 2026-27 — the £12,570 tax-free allowance, 20%/40%/45% rates, the £100,000 taper (the 60% tax trap), and worked examples.", "url": "https://paybyroster.com/uk/financial-info/income-tax-bands-personal-allowance", "mainEntityOfPage": { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://paybyroster.com/uk/financial-info/income-tax-bands-personal-allowance" }, "author": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "PayByRoster", "url": "https://paybyroster.com" }, "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "PayByRoster", "url": "https://paybyroster.com" } } --- [ P PayByRoster ](/) [Pay Calculator](/)[Salary Calculator](/salary-calculator)[Roster Comparison](/roster-comparison)[Roster Optimiser](/roster-optimizer)[Finance Tracker](/finance-tracker) Guides & Info [Sign in](/login)Toggle theme [Home](/)/ [UK Take-Home Pay Calculator](/uk/salary-calculator)/ UK Income Tax Bands & Personal Allowance # UK Income Tax Bands & Personal Allowance 2026-27 Explained The £12,570 tax-free Personal Allowance, the 20%/40%/45% bands, the £100,000 taper (the 60% tax trap), and how it's all calculated — explained without the jargon. Income tax is one of the two big deductions that sit between your gross salary and your actual take-home pay — the other being National Insurance. Of the two, income tax is the one most people think of first, and it's where the structure of allowances and bands makes the biggest difference to how much you actually hand over. This guide explains the tax-free personal allowance, the uk income tax bands for 2026-27, the higher rate tax threshold, and — importantly — the £100k personal allowance taper and the so-called 60% tax trap it creates. We'll work through real examples using verified 2026-27 figures for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. ## What Is the Personal Allowance? The Personal Allowance is the amount of income you can earn each tax year before you pay any income tax at all. For 2026-27 it is £12,570 — the same figure it has been frozen at since 2021. That freeze is itself a stealth tax rise: as wages climb with inflation, more of each pound falls above the allowance and into the taxable bands, even though the headline number hasn't moved. The allowance applies before the income tax bands do. You earn your first £12,570 tax-free, and only the income above that is taxed — and then only slice by slice, with each slice charged at the rate for the band it falls into. The allowance isn't a cash rebate; it simply shields the bottom of your income from tax. One important caveat: the Personal Allowance isn't fixed at £12,570 for everyone. Once your income passes £100,000, it starts to taper away — a mechanism that creates one of the sharpest marginal rates in the UK system (more on the 60% tax trap below). ## UK Income Tax Bands for 2026-27 For the 2026-27 tax year (6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027), the uk income tax rates 2026-27 for England, Wales and Northern Ireland are progressive — each slice of income is taxed at the rate for the band it falls into, not your whole income at your top rate. Here are the bands on total income when the full Personal Allowance applies: Band of total income Rate Band name £0 – £12,570 0% Personal Allowance (tax-free) £12,571 – £50,270 20% Basic rate £50,271 – £125,140 40% Higher rate Above £125,140 45% Additional rate So the £12,570 you earn under the Personal Allowance is tax-free personal allowance. The next chunk up to £50,270 is taxed at the 20% basic rate. Income between £50,270 and £125,140 is taxed at the 40% higher rate — this is the higher rate tax threshold, where each additional pound starts losing 40p. Above £125,140 you pay the 45% additional rate tax on the excess. Note that these bands apply to total income, but tax is only actually charged on the slice above the Personal Allowance. We'll show exactly how that works in the worked example below. These bands cover England, Wales and Northern Ireland; Scotland sets its own bands and rates (covered further down). ## How Income Tax Is Calculated To see how the Personal Allowance and bands combine, let's work through a £60,000 salary for 2026-27. Since £60,000 is below the £100,000 taper threshold, the full Personal Allowance of £12,570 applies. - Gross income: £60,000 - Less Personal Allowance: £60,000 − £12,570 = £47,430 taxable income - 20% on the first £37,700 of taxable income (the basic-rate band): 20% × £37,700 = £7,540 - 40% on the rest (£47,430 − £37,700 = £9,730, which sits in the higher-rate band): 40% × £9,730 = £3,892 - Total income tax: £7,540 + £3,892 = £11,432 So an employee earning £60,000 pays £11,432 in income tax for 2026-27, on top of their National Insurance. Notice that only the portion above £50,270 of total income is hit at 40% — the bulk of the salary still sits in the 20% basic-rate band, which is why the effective tax rate is far lower than the 40% top rate. ## The £100,000 Personal Allowance Taper (the 60% Tax Trap) Here's where UK income tax gets genuinely punishing. For every £2 your income goes above £100,000, your Personal Allowance is reduced by £1. By the time your income reaches £125,140, the entire £12,570 allowance has been tapered away to zero. Between £100,000 and £125,140 you're in what's commonly called the 60% tax trap. The reason it works out to roughly 60% is that each extra £1 of income above £100,000 does two things at once. First, it's taxed at 40% (it sits in the higher-rate band) — so you lose 40p. Second, it shrinks your Personal Allowance by 50p, and that 50p of previously tax-free income now also gets taxed at 40%, costing another 20p. Add them up and each extra £1 above £100,000 costs you 40p + 20p = 60p — an effective 60% marginal rate, even though the headline higher rate is only 40%. This is far harsher than the 45% additional rate that kicks in above £125,140. Once the allowance is fully tapered away, the 60% effect disappears and your marginal rate actually drops back to 45% on income above £125,140 — meaning the very highest earners face a lower marginal rate than those in the £100,000–£125,140 band. The most common way people escape the taper is to bring their "adjusted net income" back under £100,000 by making pension contributions through salary sacrifice. Because sacrificed salary is never paid to you in the first place, it lowers the income the taper is measured against — protecting the full Personal Allowance and avoiding the 60% marginal rate entirely. We cover the mechanics in our guide to [pension salary sacrifice explained](/uk/financial-info/pension-salary-sacrifice). ## Marginal Rate vs Effective Rate A common source of confusion is the difference between your marginal rate and your effective rate. Your marginal rate is the rate on your next pound of income — your top band (plus any taper effects). Your effective rate is the total tax you pay divided by your total income, which is always much lower because the lower bands and the Personal Allowance drag it down. Take a £150,000 salary as an example. At that level the Personal Allowance is fully tapered to £0, so the full £150,000 is taxable. The calculation runs across all three bands: 20% × £37,700 = £7,540; 40% × (£125,140 − £37,700) = 40% × £87,440 = £34,976; then 45% × (£150,000 − £125,140) = 45% × £24,860 = £11,187. Total income tax = £7,540 + £34,976 + £11,187 = £53,703 . So although the marginal rate on the top slice is 45%, the effective rate is £53,703 ÷ £150,000 — about 35.8%. The headline top rate grabs attention, but it's the effective rate that decides what actually leaves your payslip. (And remember, for the £100,000–£125,140 band the marginal rate is even harsher at ~60% — higher than the 45% additional rate above it.) ## Scotland Sets Its Own Bands One important wrinkle: Scotland sets its own income tax bands and rates, which are different from the England, Wales and Northern Ireland figures above. Scottish taxpayers face more bands (including a starter, intermediate and top rate) rather than the three-band 20%/40%/45% structure. This guide — and our UK calculator — covers England, Wales and Northern Ireland for income tax. National Insurance, by contrast, is the same UK-wide: the Class 1 employee rates and thresholds we cover in our [National Insurance explained](/uk/financial-info/national-insurance-explained) guide apply to Scottish taxpayers too. So if you're in Scotland, your NI calculations match what's shown here, even though your income tax bands don't. ## See Income Tax in Your Take-Home Pay Income tax is the larger of the two headline deductions between your gross salary and your take-home pay, shaped by the Personal Allowance, the 20%/40%/45% bands, and — for higher earners — the £100,000 taper. To see exactly how income tax and National Insurance combine on your salary, run your numbers through the UK Take-Home Pay Calculator below. It applies the verified 2026-27 rates, including the £12,570 Personal Allowance and the £100,000 taper, so your take-home estimate matches what you'll actually see on your payslip. ## Related tools and guides - [UK Take-Home Pay Calculator](/uk/salary-calculator) — see income tax and NI on your salary - [National Insurance Explained](/uk/financial-info/national-insurance-explained) — the other big deduction between gross and take-home - [Pension Salary Sacrifice Explained](/uk/financial-info/pension-salary-sacrifice) — how salary sacrifice beats the £100,000 taper - [How to Calculate Your UK Take-Home Pay](/uk/financial-info/how-to-calculate-take-home-pay) — the full workflow from gross to net This article is for general information purposes only and does not constitute tax or financial advice. The figures cover England, Wales and Northern Ireland for the 2026-27 tax year. Scotland sets its own income tax bands and rates. For advice specific to your situation, consult a qualified professional or visit gov.uk. ## See Your Take-Home Pay After Income Tax Use PayByRoster's free UK calculator to break down income tax and National Insurance on your 2026-27 salary. [Try the UK Calculator](/uk/salary-calculator) [ P PayByRoster ](/) The #1 FIFO roster pay calculator and shift worker planner. 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