UK Self-Employed Tax Calculator

Costs you have wholly and only for the business: stock and materials, business premises and their running costs, travel for work (but not your commute), the business share of your phone and internet, insurance, advertising, and accountancy fees. Personal spending is not allowable, and for anything you use both personally and for work you can only claim the business part. Equipment you keep using, such as a van or a computer, is usually claimed through capital allowances rather than as an everyday expense. Enter your total for the year in one figure.

You can take £1,000 off your turnover instead of deducting your actual expenses, but you can't do both. The allowance is better when your expenses for the year come to less than £1,000; above that, deducting your expenses leaves a smaller profit and a smaller bill. The calculator works out both and tells you which is better and by how much. If your turnover is £1,000 or less, the allowance covers all of it.

No, not since 6 April 2024. If your profits are £7,105 or more, Class 2 is treated as paid, so the year still counts towards your State Pension without you paying anything. If they are lower, you can choose to pay £3.65 a week (£189.80 a year) to keep the year counting. Class 4 is still due: 6% on profits between £12,570 and £50,270, and 2% above that. For earlier years this page includes Class 2 where it was due: up to 2021/22 on profits from the small profits threshold, and in 2022/23 and 2023/24 only on profits over the lower profits limit.

They are advance payments towards your next tax bill, each one half of your last Self Assessment bill for Income Tax and Class 4 National Insurance (student loan repayments are not included). For 2026/27 they are due on 31 January 2027 and 31 July 2027, and anything still owed is paid as a balancing payment on 31 January 2028. You don't have to make them if your last bill was under £1,000, or if more than 80% of your tax was taken at source, for example through PAYE on a job.

In your first year HMRC has no earlier bill to base payments on account on, so nothing is collected during the year. On 31 January after the year ends you pay the whole bill, and on the same day HMRC asks for the first payment on account towards the next year, which is half the bill again. So the first January payment can be one and a half times the bill. Putting money aside every month from the start, as the headline on this page suggests, is the easiest way to be ready for it.

Yes. If you expect your profit to fall, you can ask HMRC to reduce them, in your online account or on form SA303. If you reduce them too far and the final bill turns out higher, HMRC charges interest on what was paid late. Reducing them changes when you pay, not how much tax you owe in the end.

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax means keeping digital records and sending HMRC updates through compatible software. It applies from 6 April 2026 if your qualifying income is over £50,000, from 6 April 2027 if it is over £30,000, and from 6 April 2028 if it is over £20,000. Qualifying income is your self-employed turnover plus any property income, before expenses. HMRC decides using an earlier year's tax return (for April 2026 it used 2024/25), so this page's check is a guide to where you stand.

Scotland sets its own Income Tax rates and bands for earned income: 19%, 20%, 21%, 42%, 45% and 48%. Compared with the rest of the UK, that means slightly less tax on profits up to about £33,500 and more above that. Savings and dividends are taxed at UK rates wherever you live, and National Insurance is the same everywhere. Wales can set its own rates but uses the same ones as England and Northern Ireland, so choose England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Self Assessment collects 9% of your total income above your plan's threshold, or 6% above £21,000 for a Postgraduate Loan. For 2026/27 the thresholds are £26,900 for Plan 1, £29,385 for Plan 2, £33,795 for Plan 4 and £25,000 for Plan 5. Anything your employer already took through PAYE is taken off, and the repayment is part of your January bill but not of your payments on account. Savings interest and dividends count only when together they come to more than £2,000 for the year; then all of them count, not just the part over £2,000. Pension contributions come off that income: personal ones, and workplace ones paid by relief at source, at their gross amount, while ones taken before tax or by salary sacrifice are already out of your pay. If PAYE took more than turns out to be due, the difference isn't refunded here. HMRC works out the exact figure on your tax return.

Your £12,570 Personal Allowance shrinks by £1 for every £2 of income over £100,000, and is gone completely at £125,140. In that range each extra £100 of profit costs £60 in Income Tax plus £2 of Class 4, which is why the marginal rate can show 62%. Personal pension contributions reduce the income that counts for this, so they can win some or all of the allowance back.

Yes. Pick the year at the top of the form: it goes back to 2018/19, the same as the PAYE calculator, and each year uses its own Income Tax bands, National Insurance, student loan thresholds and dividend rates. It's meant for catching up on a return, for example income you didn't report at the time. For a past year the deadline will usually have gone: HMRC charges interest on tax paid late, and there can be penalties, neither of which is included here. HMRC can normally go back 4 years, 6 if tax was lost through carelessness and up to 20 if it was deliberate, so if you're putting an earlier year right it's worth speaking to HMRC or an accountant first.

It works out one person's tax for one tax year, from 2018/19 to 2026/27. It doesn't split partnership profits (enter your own share), use or carry losses, work out capital allowances in detail, or deal with VAT, the choice between the cash basis and traditional accounting, Marriage Allowance, the High Income Child Benefit Charge or Capital Gains Tax. Rental income is used only to check Making Tax Digital; the tax on it is not included. It doesn't ask about benefits from a job, such as a company car or health cover, which are taxed but don't count towards a student loan. PAYE is assumed to have taken the right tax on any salary with a standard tax code.