Answers · UK 2025/26

How much tax do I pay on £12,000 in the UK?

On a £12,000 salary in 2026/27 you pay no Income Tax and no National Insurance, because the whole amount sits within the £12,570 Personal Allowance and below the £12,570 NI Primary Threshold. Take-home pay is the full £12,000 a year, or £1,000 a month.

Last updated: 9 July 2026Last reviewed: 9 July 2026How we verify

Full answer

For 2026/27, the Personal Allowance is £12,570 -- the amount you can earn before any Income Tax is due -- and the National Insurance Primary Threshold is also £12,570. A £12,000 salary sits entirely below both figures, so you pay no Income Tax and no employee National Insurance at all, leaving the full £12,000 as take-home pay, around £1,000 a month or £230.77 a week. This applies whether you are in England, Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland, since the Personal Allowance and the point at which Scottish Income Tax starts are the same £12,570 figure. £12,000 a year is well below a full-time National Living Wage salary -- the NLW of £12.71 an hour on a standard 37.5-hour week works out to £24,783.15 a year -- so this figure typically represents part-time work, a second job, or someone working reduced hours. If a second job pushes combined earnings above £12,570, only the income above that combined threshold becomes taxable, and HMRC usually applies your Personal Allowance to your main job and taxes the second job at basic rate from the first pound, correcting any over- or under-payment via your tax code. Use the Take-Home Pay calculator to model combined income from more than one job.