Personal savings allowance calculator
Which personal savings allowance applies at your income, what the part of it you are not using would really cost to use, how much of the starting rate for savings is left — and the one pound of income that halves the allowance.
Calculator
Salary, pensions, self-employed profit, rental profit and taxable benefits — everything except savings interest and dividends. This is the figure that decides which personal savings allowance you get and how much of the starting rate for savings survives, so it matters more to the answer than the interest does.
Interest from bank and building society accounts, credit union accounts, corporate and government bonds and peer-to-peer lending. Not ISA interest, which is outside the tax system entirely and does not count towards anything here. Not dividends, which have their own allowance and their own rates.
Income tax on earnings is devolved to Scotland, so your other income is taxed differently there. Savings interest is not: the rates on interest, the personal savings allowance and the starting rate for savings are all UK-wide, and the allowance tier is decided on UK bands wherever you live.
Interest is taxed in the year it is paid or credited to you, which for a fixed-rate bond paying at maturity is not the year you earned it.
Two separate things shelter savings interest, and they work differently. The starting rate for savings is a band of £5,000 taxed at nothing, but it is reduced £1 for £1 by your non-savings income above the personal allowance, so it is gone entirely once that income reaches £17,570. The personal savings allowance does not taper at all — it steps, from one figure to a smaller one to nothing, according to which band your total income reaches.
Your allowance, what it is worth, and where it steps
Your personal savings allowance is £1,000.00
£250.00 of it is not being used by the interest you entered — and receiving that £250.00 of interest would cost you £100.00 in income tax, not nothing. The allowance is not a pot of tax-free interest waiting to be collected: the interest counts towards the income that decides how large the allowance is, so receiving it can shrink the very allowance that appeared to cover it.
What the allowance is worth to you is £346.00 — the tax that the same £1,000.00 of interest would bear if it were charged just above the allowance instead of inside it. That is the honest measure of an allowance: not its size, but the tax it removes. Every figure here is a difference between two calculations by the same engine the rest of this site uses. Nothing is multiplied by a rate.
Why that allowance, and where it changes
The allowance is decided by which band your total taxable income reaches — with your savings interest counted in it. That last part is the whole trap: interest is both the thing being sheltered and part of what decides how much shelter there is.
| Band your income reaches | Personal savings allowance | From this much taxable income | Roughly this much gross income |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic rateyours, at this income | £1,000.00 | £0.00 | — |
| Higher rate | £500.00 | £37,700.00 | £50,270 |
| Additional rate | £0.00 | £125,140.00 | £125,140 |
These bands are UK-wide, wherever you live. Savings interest is not devolved: a Scottish taxpayer in the intermediate band is a UK basic-rate taxpayer for this purpose, and gets the basic-rate allowance. Your other income is taxed on England or Northern Ireland rates; the allowance above is not. The gross-income column is a conversion for readers who have a salary rather than a taxable income figure, and it is accurate to about a pound — which is why the cliff below is located by asking the engine instead.
At your income the next band is Higher rate, and it is £20.00 of further gross income away.
The starting rate for savings, which is not an allowance
| The band, at its full width | £5,000.00 at 0.00% |
|---|---|
| Reduced by your non-savings taxable income | £5,000.00 |
| Left for your interest | £0.00 |
It is gone entirely at your income, and it is gone for most people with a salary. It is withdrawn pound for pound — not by half, not gradually — by non-savings income above the personal allowance, so it disappears once that income reaches £17,570. That is why articles listing it alongside the personal savings allowance as though both were generally available are misleading: for most readers only one of them exists.
It is a band charged at 0.00%, not a deduction — so the interest inside it still occupies space in the schedule and still pushes the interest above it further up. That distinction is invisible on a payslip and changes the answer for anybody near a threshold.
The pound of income that halves your allowance
The personal savings allowance does not taper. It steps — and a step in an allowance is a step in the bill, because the part that disappears moves out of a nil-rate band and into a taxed one for the whole year, retrospectively.
| Other income | Personal savings allowance | What that pound costs in income tax |
|---|---|---|
| £49,520.00 — the pound before the step | £1,000.00 | £0.20 |
| £49,521.00 — the pound that crosses it | £500.00 | £50.20 |
£21.00 more of other income takes your allowance from £1,000.00 to £500.00, and that single pound costs £50.20 where the pound before it costs £0.20. Both are the marginal rate on earned income, and no rate table contains either. This is the figure a reader deciding whether to take an extra shift, a bonus or a bigger drawdown actually needs, and it is the reason a page about this allowance cannot stop at reporting its size.
What the crossing pound costs is the tax on the interest the vanishing half of the allowance was sheltering — so it is largest for a reader whose interest fills the allowance, and it is almost nothing for a reader with very little interest, who loses shelter they were not using. The size of the step is fixed; the price of it is yours. Change the interest box and watch the last column move while the crossing income stays where it is.
The engine’s own marginal rate at your current income is 20.00%, and it is correct — right up until you are standing on the pound above. A calculator that reports only the marginal rate tells the truth and misses the cliff entirely.
Your interest, band by band
| Band | Rate | Interest in it | Tax |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal savings allowance | 0.00% | £750.00 | £0.00 |
| Tax on the savings bands | £750.00 | £0.00 | |
| What receiving the interest actually cost you | £0.00 |
Those last two figures are different numbers and both are honest. The first is the tax charged on the interest’s own slices of the schedule, which is what the table adds up to. The second is your whole bill with the interest less your whole bill without it — larger, because the law allocates the personal allowance across income types in whichever way produces the lowest bill, and taking the interest away changes that allocation. The extra falls on your other income.
The next £100.00 of interest would cost £70.00. That is measured by asking the engine for your position with £100 more interest and subtracting — not taken from the marginal rate it reports, which is 20.00% and is the rate on your next pound of earned income. The two differ whenever any of the starting rate band or the personal savings allowance is left, which is precisely the situation this page is about.
Five things this figure does not know
Savings income gets its own rate schedule from 6 April 2027
Announced at Budget 2025: from that date savings income is taxed on a schedule of its own rather than at the same rates as earnings, in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The starting rate for savings and the personal savings allowance are unchanged by it — the tiers and the mechanics on this page still hold — but the rates the interest above them bears do not. Every tax year this calculator offers is before that change, so no figure here reflects it, and the new rates are not written on this page because they are not in the rules files this software computes from. HMRC’s technical note sets out the change.
It does not know when your interest is actually paid
Interest is taxed in the tax year it is paid or credited to you, not the year it accrued. A fixed-rate bond that pays everything at maturity can put several years’ interest into one tax year — which is the commonest way an ordinary saver lands on the wrong side of the step above. The boxes take one year’s figures and cannot see the shape of the account behind them.
It has no dividends, and dividends change the answer
Dividend income counts towards the total taxable income that decides which allowance tier you are in, and it has an allowance and a set of rates of its own. This page has no box for it, so a reader with dividends may be in a lower tier than shown. The income tax calculator takes earnings, interest and dividends together and prices all three in the statutory order.
It is one person’s income and nothing about how the money is held
Interest on a jointly held account is normally split equally between the holders for tax, and each holder has their own allowance — so a couple with a joint account are two calculations rather than one. Nothing about ISAs is modelled either: ISA interest is outside the tax system entirely, does not use the allowance and does not count towards the income that decides it. Children’s accounts and trust income have rules of their own.
It prices income tax on interest, and stops there
Your total income of £50,250.00 is the figure a number of other things are worked out from, and this page prices one of them. Nothing here about how the tax is collected — a basic-rate taxpayer with modest interest usually pays it through a change to their tax code rather than a bill — and nothing about the High Income Child Benefit Charge, student loan repayments or means-tested benefits. The savings interest calculator starts from a balance and a rate if you want the interest worked out for you.
Worked example: the allowance that looks unused, priced
Sarah earns £50,000 and has £1,000.00 of personal savings allowance with none of it used. Every calculator on the internet will tell her that is £1,000.00 of tax-free interest waiting to be collected. Collecting it costs her £146.00.
Here is why. With no interest at all, her taxable income is £37,430.00 — inside the basic rate band, so she gets the basic-rate allowance of £1,000.00. The moment she receives £1,000.00 of interest, her total taxable income crosses into the band above, and the allowance halves to £500.00. Half of the interest she thought was covered is not covered, and the change to the allocation of her personal allowance pulls some of her salary into a higher band too.
| Figure | No interest | With £1,000 of interest |
|---|---|---|
| Total taxable income | £37,430.00 | £38,430.00 |
| Personal savings allowance | £1,000.00 | £500.00 |
| Starting rate band for savings left | £0.00 | £0.00 |
| Income tax on everything | £7,486.00 | £7,632.00 |
| What the interest cost | — | £146.00 |
Notice that the tax charged on the interest’s own bands is £92.00, and the interest cost her £146.00. The difference falls on her salary. The law lets the personal allowance be allocated across income types in whichever way produces the lowest bill, and adding the interest changes what that allocation is — so the interest costs more than any table of savings bands can show. Both figures are on the calculator above, named, because reporting only one of them would either understate what happened or leave a headline the table beneath it does not add up to.
Tom, on £14,000, has £3,570.00 of starting rate band as well as his £1,000.00 allowance — so his £4,000 of interest costs him £0.00. The starting rate for savings is a band of £5,000.00 taxed at 0.00%, reduced pound for pound by non-savings income above the personal allowance, and it is gone entirely once that income reaches £17,570. Sarah has none of it. Most people with a salary have none of it, which is why so much writing that lists it beside the personal savings allowance is misleading.
Methodology and sources
The calculation, in order
- Hand your other income and your interest to the income tax engine together, as one taxpayer. It deducts the personal allowance, allocating it across income types in whichever way produces the lowest bill, as the law requires.
- The starting rate band comes first — a band of £5,000.00 at 0.00%, reduced pound for pound by non-savings taxable income.
- Then the personal savings allowance, whose size is decided by the band your total taxable income reaches — savings interest included.
- Interest above both is taxed at the ordinary rates.
- Ask the engine again with the unused part of the allowance actually received. The difference is what that “spare” allowance would really cost.
- Find the pound of other income that steps the allowance down, by bisection over the engine, and price it against the pound before it.
An unused allowance is not spare capacity, and this page never labels it as such. The allowance is decided by income that includes the interest it appears to cover, so receiving the interest can shrink the allowance. That is not an edge case: it is what happens to anybody whose income sits below a band boundary by less than their interest.
Rates, thresholds and allowances
| Figure | 2025/26 | 2026/27 |
|---|---|---|
| Personal savings allowance — basic / higher / additional | £1,000 / £500 / £0 | £1,000 / £500 / £0 |
| Starting rate band for savings | £5,000 at 0.00% | £5,000 at 0.00% |
| Personal allowance | £12,570 | £12,570 |
| Personal allowance taper starts at | £100,000 | £100,000 |
| Savings rates and the bands the allowance tiers follow (UK-wide) | Basic rate 20.00% from £0; Higher rate 40.00% from £37,700; Additional rate 45.00% from £125,140 | Basic rate 20.00% from £0; Higher rate 40.00% from £37,700; Additional rate 45.00% from £125,140 |
| Earned income bands — Scotland (your other income, not your interest) | Starter rate 19.00% from £0; Basic rate 20.00% from £2,827; Intermediate rate 21.00% from £14,921; Higher rate 42.00% from £31,092; Advanced rate 45.00% from £62,430; Top rate 48.00% from £125,140 | Starter rate 19.00% from £0; Basic rate 20.00% from £3,967; Intermediate rate 21.00% from £16,956; Higher rate 42.00% from £31,092; Advanced rate 45.00% from £62,430; Top rate 48.00% from £125,140 |
The savings schedule and the allowance tiers are UK-wide. Scotland sets its own rates for earned income and cannot set them for savings interest, so a Scottish taxpayer’s salary is charged on the Scottish schedule while their interest is charged on the UK one — and the allowance tier is decided on the UK bands. The current allowances are £1,000, £500 and £0, and the first two are worth the same amount of tax to the taxpayers who get them, which is not a coincidence.
What this page does not model
- The savings rate schedule taking effect on 6 April 2027, which is after every tax year offered here.
- Dividends, which count towards the income that decides the allowance tier and are not asked for on this page.
- When interest is paid. It is taxed in the year it is credited, so a fixed-rate bond paying at maturity can put several years into one.
- Joint accounts, ISAs, children’s accounts and trusts. ISA interest is outside the tax system entirely and does not count anywhere here.
- How the tax is collected — usually a change to a tax code rather than a bill, for a reader with modest interest.
Where the figures come from
- gov.uk — Tax on savings interest
- gov.uk — Income Tax rates and Personal Allowances
- gov.uk — Income tax rates and allowances: current and past
- gov.uk — Change to tax rates for property, savings and dividend income (technical note)
The rates and allowances in the table above were verified against gov.uk on 12 August 2026. That check covers the published figures this page computes with. It does not verify any result the page produces, and it has not yet been signed off by a person — the verification recorded in the source repository is an automated one. Check anything that matters against gov.uk or with an accountant.
Every calculation runs in your browser. There is no application server and no database, so nothing you type is transmitted or stored. A share link is the exception: it carries your figures in the URL. More on what that means. Information, not advice.
Personal savings allowance questions
- What is the personal savings allowance?
It is an amount of savings interest charged at 0% rather than at your ordinary rate. Its size depends on which band your total taxable income reaches — currently £1,000 for a basic-rate taxpayer, £500 for a higher-rate one and nothing at the additional rate. It is a nil-rate band rather than a deduction, so the interest inside it still occupies space in the schedule and still pushes anything above it further up.
- Is unused personal savings allowance the same as tax-free interest I could still earn?
No, and this is the most expensive misunderstanding in UK savings tax. Your interest counts towards the total taxable income that decides how large the allowance is, so receiving the interest an "unused" allowance appears to cover can push you into the band above and halve the allowance — retrospectively, for the whole year. On £50,000 of salary with no interest, the full £1,000 looks unused; actually receiving £1,000 of interest costs £146.00. That is why this calculator never shows an unused allowance without showing what using it would cost.
- Can one extra pound of income really cost more than a pound?
Yes. The allowance does not taper — it steps — so the part that disappears moves out of a nil-rate band and into a taxed one for the whole year at once. On the figures this calculator opens with, £21.00 more of other income takes the allowance from £1,000.00 to £500.00, and the single pound that crosses it costs £50.20 where the pound before it costs £0.20. Both are the marginal rate on earned income. What the crossing pound costs is the tax on the interest the vanishing half of the allowance was sheltering, so it is largest for somebody whose interest fills their allowance and small for somebody with very little interest — the step is the same size either way, and the price of it is not.
- What is the starting rate for savings?
A band of £5,000 of savings interest charged at 0.00%, sitting immediately above the personal allowance and below the personal savings allowance in the stack. It is reduced pound for pound — not gradually, and not by half — by non-savings taxable income above the personal allowance, so it is gone entirely once that income reaches £17,570. Most people with a salary have none of it, which is why listing it alongside the personal savings allowance as though both were generally available is misleading.
- Does the personal savings allowance depend on my salary or on my total income?
Total taxable income, with the savings interest counted in — not the salary alone. Somebody with a salary just inside the basic rate and enough interest to cross the boundary is a higher-rate taxpayer for this purpose and gets the smaller allowance. Working it out from the salary alone is the single most common error in this area, and it is wrong in the direction that promises more shelter than exists.
- Is the allowance different in Scotland?
No. Savings interest is not devolved: the rates on it, the personal savings allowance and the starting rate for savings are all UK-wide, and the allowance tier is decided on UK bands. So a Scottish taxpayer in the intermediate band is a UK basic-rate taxpayer for this purpose and gets the basic-rate allowance, even though their salary is taxed on a different schedule. The calculator above asks where you live because your other income is taxed differently, not because the allowance is.
- Does ISA interest use up my personal savings allowance?
No. Interest inside an ISA is outside the income tax system entirely: it is not taxed, it does not use the allowance, and it does not count towards the total income that decides which tier of the allowance you are in. That last part is the one people miss — moving savings into an ISA does not only shelter that interest, it also stops that interest pushing the rest of your income across a band boundary.
- Why do two figures for “tax on my interest” appear on this page?
Because they answer different questions and both are honest. The first is the tax charged on the interest’s own slices of the schedule, which is what the band table adds up to. The second is your whole bill with the interest less your whole bill without it, and it is larger — because the law allocates the personal allowance across income types in whichever way produces the lowest bill, and taking the interest away changes that allocation. The extra falls on your other income. Showing only the first would understate what receiving the interest did to you; showing only the second would leave a headline the table beneath it does not add up to.
- Is the personal savings allowance changing?
The allowance itself and the starting rate for savings are unchanged by what has been announced so far. What is changing, from 6 April 2027, is that savings income gets its own rate schedule in England, Wales and Northern Ireland rather than being charged at the same rates as earnings — so the tax on interest above the allowance moves, while the mechanics on this page stay as they are. Every tax year this calculator offers is before that date, and the new rates are not quoted here because they are not among the figures this software computes from. HMRC’s technical note is linked in the methodology.
- What does the calculator show on the figures it opens with?
On £49,500 of other income and no interest, in England for 2026/27: total taxable income of £37,680.00 puts you in the basic rate band, so the personal savings allowance is £1,000.00 and none of the starting rate band survives. All £1,000.00 of the allowance is unused — and receiving exactly that much interest would cost £100.00 in income tax. That figure is the reason this page exists.