Marriage Allowance calculator
Marriage Allowance lets the lower earner in a marriage or civil partnership transfer £1,260 of their personal allowance to their partner, saving up to £252 a year, and claims backdate four tax years, so a first claim can be worth over £1,000. The catch is the eligibility window, which this checker tests properly, including the partial cases where the transferor pays a little tax but the household still gains.
Marriage Allowance would save your household
£252.00 a year
The full £252.00, the lower earner's spare allowance is otherwise wasted. Claims backdate up to 4 years.
The rules in one paragraph
One partner must earn under the personal allowance (so some of it is going unused); the other must be a basic-rate taxpayer, above the allowance but below the higher-rate line (£43,662 in Scotland, where the intermediate rate still counts as eligible). The transfer is all-or-nothing at £1,260: you cannot transfer less, which is why a lower earner between £11,310 and £12,570 still usually benefits on a household basis but personally starts paying a little tax, the calculator above nets the two off. Claim once at gov.uk and it renews automatically; remember to cancel if the lower earner's income rises, or a surprise bill follows.
Checked 2026-08-28 against gov.uk/marriage-allowance. Your tax code changes to M (recipient) or N (transferor), decode yours in the tax code checker.