A box-by-box walkthrough of the UK P60 for 2025/26 — what each figure means, the errors that quietly cost workers money, and how to fix them.
So the P60 finally arrived. Maybe it landed in your work inbox, maybe a paper copy turned up on your desk, maybe HR pinged you a PDF. Either way, it’s a one-page document with a lot of small numbers on it, and unless you work in payroll, the boxes don’t immediately tell you what’s worth checking.
Here’s the guide I wish someone had handed me the first time. We’ll walk through the form box by box, then look at the errors that quietly cost UK workers money every year — wrong tax code, missing pension contributions, mismatched NI categories, and the “your previous job is invisible” problem.
A P60 is your employer’s official statement of how much they paid you and how much tax and National Insurance they deducted during the tax year that just ended (6 April 2025 to 5 April 2026).
Every employee who was still on payroll on 5 April 2026 is entitled to one by 31 May 2026. If you left a job partway through the year, you got a P45 instead — your final employer of the tax year gives you the P60.
The P60 looks different depending on which payroll software your employer uses, but the data points are standardised by HMRC. Here’s what each section is telling you.
At the top: your full name, National Insurance number, and usually a “works number” (your payroll ID at this employer).
Worth checking:
QQ123456C). A wrong digit means your contributions may not be credited to your record. Cross-reference against the HMRC app.A single box, usually near the top, showing the tax code your employer was using on 5 April 2026.
The common codes you’ll see:
K475) — your benefits in kind or owed tax exceed your personal allowance, so HMRC is adding to your taxable pay rather than subtracting.S1257L) — Scottish taxpayer, different bands apply.If the code at end of year is different from what you expected, that’s the first red flag. Cross-check against the 1257L explainer if you’re not sure what yours should be.
Two figures here:
These numbers should match the year-to-date figures on your final March 2026 payslip. If they don’t, something was either adjusted late or recorded wrong. Worth a quick payslip check.
Two more figures, only filled in if you changed jobs in 2025/26:
These come from the P45 your new employer received when you joined. If you changed jobs and these boxes are blank, your previous job’s pay was probably never linked to your new payroll — which means you might have been on emergency tax for months and HMRC might still owe you a refund.
This is the line that matters most.
Mortgage applications, Self Assessment, tax credit reviews, and refund claims all pull from these two numbers. If you’re going to verify anything, verify these.
Worked example: you worked at Tesco from April to August 2025 earning £14,000 gross, then moved to Wetherspoons and earned £18,000 there through April 2026. Your P60 from Wetherspoons should show Previous employment pay £14,000, In this employment pay £18,000, and Total for year pay £32,000. Tax across both should reflect £32,000 minus your £12,570 personal allowance — roughly £3,886 (£19,430 × 20%).
If your total tax deducted is significantly more than that, you probably overpaid (common after a job change) and HMRC owes you. If significantly less, a P800 letter or Simple Assessment may be on its way.
A small grid showing your earnings broken down by NI band, plus the contributions you paid.
The bands for 2025/26:
And a single letter showing your NI category (most commonly A — standard rate, working-age employee).
Other categories worth knowing: C (over state pension age, no employee NI due), H (apprentice under 25), J (deferred — second job paying NI elsewhere), and M (under 21). If you’re 35 and on category C, payroll made an error. If you’re 17 and on A instead of M, you may be owed an NI refund.
Lines for Statutory Sick Pay (SSP), Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP), Statutory Paternity Pay (SPP), Adoption Pay (SAP), Shared Parental Pay (ShPP), and Neonatal Care Pay (SNCP — new from April 2025).
If you didn’t take any of these in the year, these boxes should be £0 or blank. If you took maternity leave but SMP is blank, something is wrong with how payroll recorded the period — escalate it.
A single figure showing total student loan repayments for the year.
The plan type (Plan 1, 2, 4, 5, or Postgraduate) isn’t always printed on the P60, but the deduction figure should match the cumulative deductions on your payslips. Plan 2 (most graduates from 2012–2023) and Plan 5 (post-2023 starters) have different repayment thresholds, and mixing them up is a common payroll error.
A three-digit office number, a slash, and an alphanumeric employer reference (e.g. 120/AB12345). HMRC uses this to identify which employer’s RTI submissions to reconcile against. You’ll need this if you ever claim a refund or contact HMRC about this employment.
In a few minutes, you can catch the most common P60 mistakes.
Compare the code on your P60 to the code on your final March 2026 payslip, and to the code shown in the HMRC app right now. All three should match. If they don’t — especially if you’re on W1/M1 or a BR code on what should be your main job — you’ve likely overpaid and should contact HMRC to get the code corrected and any refund processed.
If you’re in a salary-sacrifice pension scheme, your pension contributions should have reduced your gross taxable pay before tax was calculated. Check that the “Pay” figure on your P60 is your salary minus your pension contributions — not your full salary.
Example: you earn £30,000 and sacrifice 5% (£1,500) into your pension. Your P60 “Pay” should show roughly £28,500. If it shows £30,000, you’ve paid income tax and NI on £1,500 that should have been pre-tax — about £420 lost on income tax alone, plus the NI saving.
If this is wrong, ask payroll to confirm whether your scheme is salary sacrifice or “relief at source” — the latter is processed differently and the gross pay figure stays the same.
Look at the category letter and your age and circumstances. If you’re under 21 and on A instead of M, the employer paid too much employer NI but you may also be missing out on certain age-related provisions. If you’re over state pension age and on A, you’ve paid NI you didn’t owe — that’s a refund waiting to happen.
You changed jobs and the “Previous employment” boxes are empty. HMRC may not know what your full year looked like, and you may have been on emergency tax. Compare your old P45 to the P60. If they don’t reconcile, raise it with payroll first; if they can’t fix it, check the employment history in your Personal Tax Account.
The P60 format itself didn’t change for the 2025/26 tax year. The bands, thresholds, and required boxes are the same as last year.
What’s different in 2026: HMRC’s digital-first approach means fewer paper P60s — many employers now issue them only as PDFs through payroll portals (Workday, Sage, MyHR), so check there before assuming yours wasn’t issued. Statutory Neonatal Care Pay (SNCP) appears on the form for the first time after the April 2025 entitlement launch (most will show £0). And the personal allowance is still frozen at £12,570 through April 2028, so the tax-code maths underpinning your P60 hasn’t moved.
If your March 2026 payslip already reconciled correctly, your P60 should follow without surprises. The surprises tend to come from mid-year changes — a new job, a benefit added, a pension scheme switch — that payroll didn’t pick up cleanly.
If your P60 totals don’t match what you expected your take-home to be, the NetPay app lets you back-calculate gross-to-net at any tax code and salary — useful for spotting the gap between what payroll said you earned and what you actually have in the bank. Free to download.
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Start at the top with your personal details (name, NI number, works number), then check the tax code box. Move to the 'In this employment' section for what your current job paid you and what tax it took. The 'Previous employment(s)' boxes only have figures if you changed jobs in the tax year. The 'Total for year' line is the one HMRC uses for everything else — refunds, mortgages, Self Assessment. Below that, the NI section breaks your earnings into bands so HMRC can confirm the right contribution category was applied.
The 'Total for year — Pay' and 'Total for year — Tax deducted' figures. Those two numbers are what HMRC reconciles your tax against. Mortgage lenders, refund claims, and tax credit applications all pull from those totals. Everything else on the form supports or breaks down those two numbers.
Don't ignore it — the longer a wrong P60 sits unchallenged, the harder it is to unwind. Compare the totals to your final March 2026 payslip. If they don't match, ask your employer's payroll team for a P60 reissue (they can amend it). If your employer has gone out of business or won't help, contact HMRC on 0300 200 3300 — they can pull the data from RTI submissions and confirm the correct figures.
Yes — keep it for at least 22 months after the end of the tax year (so a 2025/26 P60 should be kept until at least 31 January 2028). HMRC can open enquiries up to that point, and you'll need the original to back up any refund claims, Marriage Allowance applications, or mortgage paperwork. Most people end up needing one within a few years even if they don't expect to.
Want to see your actual take-home pay?
NetPay UK works out your real net pay after tax, NI, pension and salary sacrifice, for hourly, shift and variable-income workers. Free to download.
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A note on financial advice: NetPay UK calculates take-home pay based on official HMRC tax rules. This article reflects rules in force at the time of publication (27 May 2026). Tax rules change. For complex situations, consult a qualified UK accountant or visit gov.uk/income-tax.
