Tax rebate calculator

PAYE spreads your £12,570 tax-free allowance evenly across the 2026/27 tax year (6 April to 5 April), so if you stop working part-way through it, graduation, redundancy, a career break, leaving the UK, every month you did work was taxed as if the salary would run all twelve, and those months were over-taxed. Someone on £30,000 who works five months and stops has paid tax on the assumption of a £30,000 year while actually earning £12,500, most of which sits inside the tax-free allowance. That overpayment is legally yours, the claim is free through HMRC directly (form P50 now, or the automatic P800 reconciliation later), and no refund company is ever needed. This calculator, using HMRC's 2026/27 rates checked 28 August 2026, estimates what you are owed from your salary and the months you worked.

Calculator

Figures update as you type. Press Calculate to jump to the result.

Annual salary

Months worked this tax year (from 6 April)

I'll work again before 5 April

Estimated overpaid income tax so far

£1,452.50

You were taxed £1,452.50 but only £0.00 is due on £12,500.00 of actual earnings, because PAYE assumed the salary would run all twelve months.

How to actually get it back

If you won't work again before 5 April, claim now rather than waiting: form P50 in your personal tax account repays it within weeks. Otherwise HMRC reconciles the year automatically and posts a P800 calculation the following summer. Never pay a refund company a percentage for this, the claim is free and takes minutes. National Insurance works per pay period, so unlike income tax it is usually not refundable when you stop work.

Assumes even monthly pay on the standard 1257L code, England bands, starting from April. Emergency codes, benefits and mid-year pay changes shift the numbers, your tax code is the first thing to check.

The other common refund cases

Emergency tax on a new job: a W1/M1 code taxed each payday in isolation; refunds arrive through pay once the correct code lands. Decode yours in the tax code checker.
A wrong code all year: BR on your only job means roughly £2,514 of allowance-tax overpaid; claims backdate four tax years.
Unclaimed higher-rate pension relief: often the biggest one; see the pension relief calculator.
Work expenses: uniform washing, professional fees, mileage, claimed on form P87 directly on gov.uk in minutes. Your P60 (issued each May) shows a whole year's pay and tax at a glance, the starting point for any tax-back claim covering an earlier year.
Leaving the UK part way through a tax year: a full year's personal allowance set against part of a year's pay usually means tax is owed back. The form is P85, sent once you have gone or are going, with parts 2 and 3 of your P45. The calculator above prices the same gap: enter what you earned before you left.

How do I claim an HMRC tax refund?

Every route is free and runs through HMRC directly, the calculator above names the right form for the stopped-work case (P50 now, or the automatic P800 later). Two routes it doesn't cover: if you are starting another job rather than stopping work, no form is needed at all, hand the new employer your P45 and cumulative PAYE repays the overpayment through your first payslips automatically. And for past years: a wrong code in an earlier year, unclaimed expenses, uniform allowance, your personal tax account on gov.uk shows each year's position and claims backdate four tax years, so a code that was wrong in 2023 is still worth hundreds of pounds today. The personal tax account is the fastest route for everything; refunds arrive by bank transfer in days once approved.

Never pay for a refund

An industry of “tax reclaim” firms takes 25-48% of refunds that HMRC pays out free on request, and signing their forms can hand them your future refunds too. Every route above is a free claim through your personal tax account. If someone contacts you promising a refund, it is at best a fee-taker and at worst a scam.

Tax refund or tax rebate — is there a difference?

No. In the UK the two words describe the same thing: money you overpaid in income tax being returned to you. HMRC's own forms and letters say repayment, most people say tax rebate, and the phrase tax refund is used interchangeably with both. Whichever term you searched for, this calculator estimates the same figure, and the claim is the same free process direct with HMRC.

The distinction worth knowing is not in the wording but in who claims it. Companies advertising “tax rebate” services typically take 25% to 40% of whatever comes back, plus VAT, for filing a form you can submit yourself in a few minutes. HMRC never charges for a repayment, and it often arrives automatically after a P800 calculation without anyone claiming at all.

2026/27 rates, checked 28 August 2026 by Hadi. Estimates assume even pay and the standard code. HMRC's own calculation is definitive. Method on the about page.

How to use the tax rebate calculator

1
Enter what you earned and what tax was actually deducted.
2
Add the months you worked, since a partial year is the most common cause of overpayment.
3
Read the tax that should have been due against what you paid.
4
Follow the claim steps, which are free and go directly to HMRC.

When should you use the tax rebate calculator?

Use it if you stopped work mid-year, were on an emergency code, or have never claimed higher-rate pension relief or work expenses.

You stopped work part way through the year

Your allowance is spread across twelve months, so leaving early usually means you overpaid.

You were on an emergency code

Emergency codes take too much and the difference comes back once the code is corrected.

You have work expenses

Uniform, tools and professional fees can be claimed, and backdate four years.

You never claimed higher-rate pension relief

That relief is a refund too, and it also backdates four years.

Where to go next

All 51 calculators share one tested engine, so a figure from the tax rebate calculator agrees with every other page here. See the full calculator index or the pay and tax guides.