Student Loan Repayment Calculator

On £45,000 with a Plan 2 loan, about £117 a month comes out of your pay: you repay 9% of everything above the monthly threshold of £2,448.75, and your balance does not change the amount.

• Plans 1, 2, 4 and 5: 9% of pay above the plan's threshold. Postgraduate loan: 6% above its threshold.
• The threshold is the yearly figure divided by the number of paydays, rounded down to the penny, and the deduction is rounded down to the pound (HMRC's rule for employers).
• Repayments depend on your pay, not on how much you owe. A larger balance does not mean a larger deduction.
• Repayments stop when your pay falls below the threshold, and start again when it rises above it.

GOV.UK describes it as your income, "including things like bonuses and overtime, before tax and other deductions". Payroll applies this to earnings that are subject to Class 1 National Insurance, which is the figure HMRC's specification for employers uses.

That is why the two ways of paying into a pension differ. A pension contribution paid the ordinary way (net pay or relief at source) leaves your pay for the loan unchanged. Salary sacrifice lowers the pay National Insurance is charged on, so the loan is normally worked out on the lower pay. On £45,000 with a Plan 2 loan, £250 a month by salary sacrifice takes the deduction from £117 to £94 a month, £276 a year less. Your payroll may differ.

Plan 2, paid monthly, 2026/27. England, Wales and Northern Ireland tax rules.

The calculator above works it out for your own pay, plan and how often you are paid.

Taking the whole year at once gives 9% of (£45,000 less £29,385), which is £1,405.35. Payroll instead works out each payday on its own, rounds each down to the pound, and adds twelve of them: £117 x 12 = £1,404. The calculator uses the payroll method, so it matches a payslip rather than an annual estimate.

If you have an undergraduate plan and a postgraduate loan, each is worked out on its own threshold and rate and the two are added. On £45,000: Plan 2 £117 plus Postgraduate £120 makes £237 a month, £2,844 a year.

If you have loans on more than one undergraduate plan, HMRC tells employers to start with the plan that has the lowest threshold; choose that plan in the calculator.

A bonus is paid in one payday, so that payday's loan is worked out on its own and can be much larger. On £30,000 with a Plan 2 loan and a £6,000 bonus, eleven ordinary months and one bonus month come to £588 for the year; taking the year at once would give £595.35. Add a bonus under "Make it exact" to see your own figure.

If a bonus or overtime month means a deduction is taken in a year when your whole income stays below the yearly threshold, you can ask the Student Loans Company for a refund after the tax year ends.

The student loan repayment threshold is the pay above which you start repaying. For 2026/27 it is £26,900 for Plan 1, £29,385 for Plan 2, £33,795 for Plan 4 (Scotland), £25,000 for Plan 5 and £21,000 for the postgraduate loan, all a year. You repay 9% of pay above the threshold (6% for a postgraduate loan).

Yearly thresholds from HMRC's rates and thresholds for employers, read 15 October 2026:2024/25, 2025/26, 2026/27. The Plan 2 threshold is frozen for three years from April 2027; see the freeze section below.

Plan 2 loans are written off 30 years after the April you were first due to repay. Any balance left then is cancelled; it does not have to be paid.

Plan 1

25 years after the April you were first due to repay; age 65 for a first loan paid before 1 September 2006.

Plan 2

30 years after the April you were first due to repay.

Plan 4

30 years after the April you were first due to repay; age 65 or 30 years, whichever is first, for a first loan paid before 1 August 2007.

Plan 5

40 years after the April you were first due to repay.

Postgraduate

30 years after the April you were first due to repay.

Repayment starts the April after you leave your course (part-time: the April four years after it started, for longer courses that began before 1 January 2027). Source: GOV.UK, when your student loan gets written off.

The Lifetime tab shows the date for your own loan under the assumptions it lists. As an illustration, a £40,000 Plan 2 loan on £45,000 with pay growing 3% a year: the loan is written off in 2057, with about £77,069 still owed at that point (written off, not paid).

How long a loan takes to clear depends on your plan, your balance, how your pay changes and the interest added each month. A loan can also end by being written off before the balance reaches zero.

The Lifetime tab in the calculator above works as a student loan payoff calculator: it shows the month the loan is paid off or written off under three pay-growth scenarios, and what an extra payment would change.

Student loan interest is added to your balance each month at a rate set by your plan; this is how it works for each plan. Interest is worked out daily and added to the balance each month. It is set each September from the previous March's RPI. For 1 September 2026 to 31 August 2027 RPI is 4.1%.

Plan 1

The lower of RPI (4.1%) and bank base rate + 1% (GOV.UK states 4.8%).

Plan 2

RPI at or below £29,385, rising to RPI + 3% at £52,885 and above, capped at 6%.

Plan 4

The lower of RPI (4.1%) and bank base rate + 1% (GOV.UK states 4.8%).

Plan 5

RPI (4.1%).

Postgraduate

RPI + 3%, capped at 6%.

While you are still studying, Plan 2 and postgraduate loans carry RPI + 3% (capped). Source: Student Loans Company announcement, 1 September 2026 the 2026 to 2027 terms and conditions, how Plan 4 interest is worked out and the 6% cap announcement.

The Plan 2 threshold is £29,385 in 2026/27 and is frozen at that level for three years from April 2027, then rises with RPI. The two income points that set Plan 2's interest rate are frozen for the same three years.

For a Plan 2 loan on £45,000 with pay growing 3% a year, the Lifetime tab models the freeze as adding about £660 to what is taken by April 2030, compared with a threshold that keeps rising with RPI (4.1% assumed). A modelled figure under stated assumptions, not what a payslip will show.

Source: Department for Education, student loan forecasts for England: methodology.

Not the monthly deduction. That depends on your pay and plan. The balance matters for the lifetime view only: it decides whether the loan is cleared before the write-off date, and how much is cancelled if it is not.

Extra voluntary payments are allowed with no penalty and no refund. GOV.UK notes you may not benefit from them because the loan is written off at the end of its term. This page does not tell you whether to make them; the Lifetime tab shows what a monthly extra amount changes under the assumptions.