Your second payment on account is due 31 July. How to find what you owe and how to pay your Self Assessment bill on time for the 2026/27 tax year.
If you are self-employed, the end of July brings a payment most people would rather forget. Your second payment on account is due by 31 July, and for a lot of freelancers it arrives with no reminder letter and no fresh paperwork to explain it. One year you are fine, the next you get a nagging feeling there is a tax bill lurking and no clear sense of how big it is.
Here is the reassuring part. There is nothing new to calculate. The amount was fixed back in January when you filed last year’s return, and it is the same figure you paid then. What this post covers is how much you actually owe, where to find the precise number, and how to pay your Self Assessment bill before the deadline without getting caught out by a slow bank transfer.
Your 31 July payment on account is the second of two advance instalments towards your 2025/26 tax bill, and it is equal to half of your 2024/25 Self Assessment liability.
That is the whole thing. When you filed your 2024/25 return back in January, HMRC worked out three numbers: the balancing payment for 2024/25, a first payment on account for 2025/26, and a second payment on account for 2025/26. You paid the first two on 31 January. The 31 July payment is the third one, and it does not move based on how this year has gone. If you have had a quieter or busier 2025/26, none of that matters yet. That reckoning happens next January when you file. If you want the full mechanics of why the system exists and who gets pulled into it, I wrote a separate guide on how payment on account works for first-timers.
Because both instalments are half of last year’s bill, your July figure is identical to the one you paid in January. So the quickest sanity check is simply to look at what left your account on 31 January and expect the same again.
Worked example. Say your 2024/25 Self Assessment bill came to £4,000, and none of your tax was collected at source.
Do not rely on memory though, because part-payments, earlier reductions, or a changed return can all shift the number. Check the real figure in one of three places:
One thing worth remembering: a payment on account covers your income tax and, for the self-employed, Class 4 National Insurance. It does not include Class 2 National Insurance or a student loan collected through Self Assessment, so if your January total felt oddly specific, that is why. Those extras sit with the balancing payment instead.
This is the part that actually trips people up, because the money has to reach HMRC by 31 July, not just leave your account on the day. Different methods clear at very different speeds.
Faster Payments, through your online or phone banking. This is what I would use. It usually reaches HMRC the same day or the next day, including at weekends and on bank holidays. Pay to HMRC’s Self Assessment account using your reference, and it is the safest last-minute option.
Debit card online. You can pay your Self Assessment on the gov.uk payment page with a personal debit card, free of charge, and it lands quickly. Personal credit cards are not accepted, so do not count on one.
Direct Debit. Fine if you plan ahead, but a first-time single Direct Debit takes about five working days to go through. If you are reading this in the last week of July, it is already too slow to set up from scratch.
At your bank, or by cheque through the post. Both are slow and leave a lot of room for error close to the deadline. Avoid them unless you have days to spare.
Whichever method you pick, use the right reference or the payment can go astray. Your reference is your 11-character Self Assessment number: your 10-digit Unique Taxpayer Reference, the UTR, followed by the letter K. No spaces.
The practical rule is simple. For anything other than Faster Payments or a debit card, pay several working days early. This year 31 July falls on a Friday, so a payment you kick off on the Thursday evening by a slow method may not clear in time. When in doubt, use Faster Payments.
Cash flow for the self-employed is lumpy, and a fixed instalment based on a stronger prior year can land in a thin month. If you genuinely cannot pay the full amount, the worst move is to ignore it.
HMRC runs a Time to Pay scheme that lets you spread the bill over monthly instalments. For Self Assessment you can usually set this up yourself online, without phoning anyone, as long as you owe £30,000 or less, you have already filed your return, and you are within 60 days of the payment deadline. Interest still accrues on the outstanding balance while you pay it off, so a plan is not free, but it is far cheaper and calmer than letting the debt sit and grow.
If your situation is more complicated, or you owe more than the online limit, call HMRC’s Self Assessment payment helpline and ask about Time to Pay directly.
Yes, and the 31 July payment on account deadline is not too late to do it. If your income has genuinely dropped since 2024/25, maybe you lost a major client, went part-time, or took a salaried job, you can apply to reduce both payments on account down to what you realistically expect to owe. You do this through your HMRC online account or on form SA303.
The warning is the same one that applies in January. Be honest with the estimate. If you cut the payment too far and it turns out you earned more than you predicted, HMRC charges interest on the shortfall, backdated to the original due date. Reducing your payment on account is a tool for a real fall in income, not a way to defer a bill you know is coming.
The mechanics of payment on account have not moved for the 2026/27 tax year. The £1,000 trigger, the 80% collected-at-source rule, the two half-year instalments, and the 31 January and 31 July dates are exactly as they have been for years.
What has changed is the cost of being late. Since 6 April 2025, HMRC late payment interest is set at the Bank of England base rate plus 4 percentage points, up from base rate plus 2.5 before that. In 2026 that has worked out at around 7.75%. On a £2,000 instalment left unpaid for a couple of months, that is real money, and it is another reason to use Time to Pay rather than drift past the deadline.
The other change worth knowing is Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, which from April 2026 started applying to self-employed people and landlords with qualifying income over £50,000. It changes how and when you report through quarterly digital updates, but it does not change the payment on account rules or the 31 July date. If your income is under that threshold, nothing about your reporting has changed yet.
If you want to stop the July and January bills being a shock, the NetPay app works out your self-employed take-home after income tax and National Insurance, so you can set aside the right amount as you earn it. Free to download.
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It is half of your previous year's Self Assessment tax bill, and it is the same amount you paid on 31 January. If your 2024/25 bill was £4,000, each payment on account is £2,000, so your 31 July instalment is £2,000. The exact figure is shown in your HMRC online account.
The fastest way is Faster Payments through your online or phone banking, which usually reaches HMRC the same or next day, even at weekends. You can also pay by debit card online. Use your 11-character reference, which is your 10-digit UTR followed by the letter K.
HMRC charges late payment interest from 1 August until you pay, currently set at the Bank of England base rate plus 4 percentage points, around 7.75% in 2026. If you genuinely cannot pay, set up a Time to Pay arrangement online rather than leaving the balance sitting there.
Yes. If your income has genuinely fallen since last year, you can apply to reduce both instalments using form SA303 or through your HMRC online account, right up to the deadline. Be careful not to cut it too far, because HMRC charges interest on anything you underpay.
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 (4 July 2026). Tax rules change. For complex situations, consult a qualified UK accountant or visit gov.uk/income-tax.
