What's the UK Personal Allowance in 2025/26?

Quick answer

For the 2025/26 tax year (6 April 2025 to 5 April 2026) the standard personal allowance is £12,570. That's the slice of your income you can earn before paying any income tax. The figure has been frozen since April 2021 and is currently locked in until at least April 2028.

If you live in Scotland, you still get the same £12,570 — Scottish income tax bands sit on top of the UK personal allowance, not in place of it.

How the personal allowance works

The personal allowance is the most basic mechanism of the UK income tax system. It's a flat amount of tax-free income that almost every UK taxpayer can use against earnings, pensions, rental income and most other taxable income (savings interest has a separate Personal Savings Allowance on top — £1,000 for basic-rate, £500 for higher-rate, £0 for additional-rate taxpayers).

For most people on PAYE, the allowance is applied automatically via your tax code. The standard 2025/26 tax code is 1257L — the "1257" represents £12,570 of allowance, and the "L" means you're entitled to the standard amount.

The £100,000 taper — the "60% tax trap"

This is the part that catches a lot of higher earners by surprise.

Once your adjusted net income exceeds £100,000, your personal allowance shrinks by £1 for every £2 you earn above the threshold. By £125,140, the allowance is gone entirely.

In the £100,000–£125,140 band, every extra £1 you earn:

• Costs you 40p in income tax on the £1 itself, and
• Loses you 50p of personal allowance, which would otherwise have saved you 40p of tax.

That's 60p gone for every £1 earned — before National Insurance and student loan deductions, which push the real marginal rate even higher.

How it interacts with Marriage Allowance

Marriage Allowance lets one partner transfer £1,260 (10% of £12,570) of unused personal allowance to the other, as long as:

• You're married or in a civil partnership,
• The transferring partner earns less than £12,570 (so isn't using the full allowance), and
• The receiving partner is a basic-rate taxpayer (earning roughly £12,571–£50,270).

The saving is up to £252 per year, and you can backdate a claim up to four tax years — potentially worth over £1,000 if you've been eligible since 2021/22.

Personal allowance vs Scottish income tax

People in Scotland often ask whether they get the same £12,570. The answer is yes — the personal allowance is set by the UK government and applies UK-wide. What Scotland sets independently are the bands and rates above the allowance:

(England, Wales and Northern Ireland use three bands at 20%, 40% and 45%.)

Pensions, the personal allowance and tax relief

The personal allowance also applies to pension income in retirement. The new State Pension for 2025/26 is £11,973 a year — comfortably under the allowance, so on its own it's tax-free. But adding a workplace pension drawdown on top pushes many retirees over £12,570, which is where their income tax starts.

National Insurance has its own separate thresholds: NI is paid from £12,570 (the Primary Threshold, identical to the PA) for employees, but the rules don't otherwise share the allowance.

How to check your own personal allowance

For most PAYE employees, the personal allowance shows up indirectly in your tax code. To verify:

1. Check your most recent payslip or P60 — the tax code will be there.
2. A code of 1257L means the standard £12,570 allowance.
3. A code starting with K means you have negative allowance (e.g. company-car BIK exceeds your allowance).
4. A code with M suffix means you've received Marriage Allowance (+£1,260); N suffix means you've given it away.

If you think your tax code is wrong, you can check and update it via the Personal Tax Account on gov.uk.

See it in your take-home

To see how the personal allowance plays out in your actual monthly pay (including NI, student loan and pension), put your salary into our calculator:

Sources

• HMRC: Income Tax rates and Personal Allowances — gov.uk
• HMRC: Marriage Allowance — gov.uk
• HMRC: Tax codes — gov.uk