UK Tax Year 2025/2026 breakdown
§ A · England, Wales & Northern Ireland
Income tax bands & thresholds
| Band | Income range | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Personal Allowance | £0 – £12,570 | 0% |
| Basic rate | £12,570 – £50,270 | 20% |
| Higher rate | £50,270 – £125,140 | 40% |
| Additional rate | Over £125,140 | 45% |
§ B · Scotland
Scottish income tax bands
| Band | Income range | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Personal Allowance | £0 – £12,570 | 0% |
| Starter rate | £12,570 – £15,002 | 19% |
| Basic rate | £15,002 – £26,690 | 20% |
| Intermediate rate | £26,690 – £43,662 | 21% |
| Higher rate | £43,662 – £75,100 | 42% |
| Advanced rate | £75,100 – £125,140 | 45% |
| Top rate | Over £125,140 | 48% |
§ C · Class 1 employee
National Insurance tiers
| Band | Earnings slice | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Below Primary Threshold | £0 – £12,570 | 0% |
| Main rate (PT → UEL) | £12,570 – £50,270 | 8% |
| Upper rate (above UEL) | Over £50,270 | 2% |
2025/26 — the fifth year of the threshold freeze
The 2025/26 ruleset is structurally indistinguishable from 2026/27 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland: every rUK threshold matches the Autumn 2022 freeze. The Personal Allowance held at £12,570, the Higher Rate threshold at £50,270, and the Additional Rate threshold at £125,140.
Scotland’s bands differ very slightly from 2026/27 — the Starter and Basic rate boundaries were nudged a few hundred pounds to track inflation within the lower bands. The Higher, Advanced and Top rate edges were left untouched.
What was already locked-in
National Insurance carried forward the 8% main rate introduced in the January 2024 cut. The Upper Earnings Limit remained aligned with the Higher Rate threshold at £50,270, so above-UEL earnings continued to attract the 2% upper rate.
The £100,000 Personal Allowance taper continued to operate unchanged, keeping the 60% marginal trap between £100,000 and £125,140 fully in force.
Allowances
The dividend allowance of £500 was unchanged from the 2024 reduction. The CGT annual exempt amount held at £3,000. The ISA subscription limit was £20,000.
Why this page still matters
Archived years are kept on this directory not as nostalgia but because
real users still need to model payslips, P60s, and self-assessment
submissions against the rate set that actually applied when the income
landed. The sidebar calculator on this route runs against the 2025/26
bands — pulled live from the @fintech/calc-engine TAX_YEARS map, not
the current year’s. The structured Dataset JSON-LD emitted on this
page tags itself with the matching temporalCoverage so search engines
can disambiguate historical fiscal data from the live ruleset.
Model pensions, student loans and salary sacrifice against this year's bands
The sidebar covers the core PA + IT + NI math. SalaryGrid's full grid layers in workplace pensions, custom tax codes, marriage allowance and the 60% trap optimiser — all running against the 2025/2026 ruleset.