UK Income Tax brackets & rates 2026/27 explained

How income tax actually works in the UK — the Personal Allowance, the tax bands, Scotland's different rates, the £100,000 trap, and National Insurance on top.

UK income tax sounds complicated, but the core idea is simple: you keep the first slice of your income tax-free, then pay a rising percentage on each band above it. Crucially, moving into a higher band only ever taxes the money inside that band more — not your whole salary. Here's how the 2026/27 tax year works.

The Personal Allowance

Everyone gets a tax-free Personal Allowance of £12,570 for 2026/27. You pay no income tax at all on the first £12,570 you earn. It's the same across the whole UK.

There's one important catch. If you earn more than £100,000, your Personal Allowance shrinks by £1 for every £2 you earn above £100,000, disappearing completely once you reach £125,140. This creates the notorious "60% tax trap" between £100,000 and £125,140, where each extra pound is taxed at 40% and costs you allowance — an effective rate of around 60%.

Income Tax bands: England, Wales & Northern Ireland

Above the Personal Allowance, the rest-of-UK rates for 2026/27 are:

Basic rate — 20%: on taxable income from £12,571 up to £50,270.
Higher rate — 40%: from £50,271 up to £125,140.
Additional rate — 45%: on everything above £125,140.

So on a £60,000 salary you'd pay 20% on the chunk between £12,570 and £50,270, and 40% only on the £9,730 above £50,270 — not 40% on the whole £60,000.

Scotland has its own bands

If you live in Scotland, income tax is set by the Scottish Government and has six bands rather than three (National Insurance and the Personal Allowance are still UK-wide):

Starter — 19%: £12,571 to £16,537
Basic — 20%: £16,538 to £29,526
Intermediate — 21%: £29,527 to £43,662
Higher — 42%: £43,663 to £75,000
Advanced — 45%: £75,001 to £125,140
Top — 48%: above £125,140

Because the higher (42%) rate starts at £43,663 rather than £50,270, higher earners in Scotland generally pay a bit more income tax than elsewhere in the UK.

Don't forget National Insurance

Income tax isn't the only deduction. Employees also pay Class 1 National Insurance, which for 2026/27 is 8% on earnings between £12,570 and £50,270, then 2% on anything above that. National Insurance is the same across all four UK nations.

On top of that, if you have a student loan, you repay 9% of everything you earn above your plan's threshold (6% for Postgraduate loans), and workplace pension contributions come out too.

See it on your own salary

Rather than do the sums by hand, pop your salary into our calculator — it applies the 2026/27 bands for your part of the UK, adds National Insurance, pension and student loan, and shows your take-home pay by year, month and week.

→ Open the UK Salary & Tax Calculator