Updates

Rate changes, new calculators and site improvements

October 2026

Energy calculators moved to the October 2026 price cap

  • New Ofgem cap from 1 October to 31 December 2026. The energy bill calculator and nine related tools now use electricity at 26.32p per kWh plus 54.83p a day and gas at 7.97p per kWh plus 29.68p a day, Direct Debit averages for Great Britain. A typical household pays £1,723 a year, 4% more than in the summer quarter.
  • No VAT on electricity until 31 March 2027. The government has removed the 5% VAT from household electricity for six months. The cap already reflects it, so nothing is added on top; gas still carries 5% VAT.
  • Typical usage now matches Ofgem. Ofgem cut its typical household figures in July to 2,500 kWh of electricity and 9,500 kWh of gas a year. Our calculators still started from the older 2,700 and 11,500, which overstated the typical bill by about £210.
  • Worked examples recalculated. Several examples no longer added up. The standing charge example claimed a £239 saving from a zero standing charge tariff that actually saves £78, and the underfloor heating example put the extra cost of electric heating over gas at £273 a year when it is about £943.
September 2026

Loans, payroll, lease extensions and Right to Buy corrected

  • APR is now treated as an annual effective rate. The personal loan, car finance, debt consolidation and debt-free calculators divided the APR by 12, which slightly overstated repayments and, for expensive credit such as a 39.9% overdraft, badly overstated the interest. The APR calculator showed a monthly rate times 12 rather than the true APR. The debt-free calculator now compares avalanche and snowball across several debts, and car finance compares PCP, HP and a loan side by side.
  • Payroll and contracting. The payroll calculator misread tax codes such as 1257L M1, 0T, BR and K codes, ignored the S prefix for Scottish taxpayers and gave no tax relief on pension contributions; it now handles all of these. Employer pension minimums are now 3% of qualifying earnings on the payroll, employee cost, contractor vs permanent and workplace pension calculators. The day rate calculator now taxes the director’s salary once dividends take income over £100,000.
  • Leasehold. The lease extension calculator overstated premiums roughly twofold; it now follows the current statutory method with a 5% deferment rate, and the page no longer says marriage value is being abolished, because that reform is not yet in force. The service charge calculator divided the bill twice, and the ground rent page described a proposed £250 cap as if it were law.
  • Buying a home. The Right to Buy calculator now applies local cap exceptions and works out any repayment if you sell within five years. The First Homes calculator checks the price and income caps, and the moving cost and buy-to-let yield calculators include stamp duty surcharges.
September 2026

Business rates for shops and pubs, a correct Attainment 8, and Premium Bonds odds by amount

  • Business rates. The business rates calculator now uses the lower 2026/27 multipliers for shops, cafés, pubs, salons, gyms and hotels, picks the small business multiplier from the rateable value as the law requires (it had billed some properties under £51,000 at 48p), adds the 2026/27 1p supplement, and covers charity and rural relief, the 15% pub relief, Supporting Small Business relief, Wales and Scotland. If you do not know your rateable value, it can estimate it from your rent.
  • Attainment 8. The GCSE calculator added up your best eight grades, which is not how Attainment 8 works. It now follows the DfE rules, with English and maths double weighted, three EBacc and three open slots and combined science across two slots, so scores run to 90 and can be compared with the 2025 national average of 46.0. The page also explains why Progress 8 is not published for 2025 and 2026 GCSEs.
  • Premium Bonds odds. The Premium Bonds calculator now has a table of the odds for every holding from £1,000 to £50,000, including the typical winnings most savers actually see, which are lower than the 4.35% average because rare big prizes lift the mean.
September 2026

Take-home pay, sick pay, Universal Credit and savings tax corrected

  • Tax calculators. The income tax calculator labelled pay after income tax as take-home; it now takes off National Insurance too (£39,519.60 on £50,000). The dividend vs salary calculator missed the tax on the £12,570 salary once the allowance tapers above £100,000, which put the wrong option first at £200,000. The capital gains tax and CGT on shares calculators gave people earning under £12,570 too much of the 18% band. The savings interest tax calculator now applies the £5,000 starting rate for savings and any unused Personal Allowance, so a low earner can see £0 tax where it used to show a bill.
  • Companies and property. The Corporation Tax calculator now handles associated companies and short accounting periods. The stamp duty calculator adds the 2% non-resident surcharge and no longer charges the higher rates on purchases under £40,000.
  • Benefits. The Universal Credit calculator gave every eldest child the higher pre-2017 rate and never applied the benefit cap; it now asks about both, and no longer caps rent at £1,200 without saying so. The benefit cap calculator uses the Universal Credit rules: the £881-a-month earnings test, a 9-month grace period and the childcare element offset. The Child Benefit calculator rounds the High Income Child Benefit Charge down as the law requires, and notes that employed parents can pay it through their tax code.
  • Statutory pay. The sick pay calculator converted calendar days into working days and underpaid short absences, sometimes by half; it now asks for working days off. The maternity pay calculator showed SMP to people earning under £129 a week, who do not qualify; it now estimates Maternity Allowance instead. The minimum wage calculator can now check the hourly rate you are paid.
  • Pensions. The NHS pension calculator used the 2024/25 contribution tiers, and both it and the LGPS calculator understated the maximum lump sum (it is 30/7 of the pension, capped at £268,275). LGPS contribution bands are now 2026/27. The drawdown calculator caps tax-free cash at £268,275, says when a pot never runs out, and notes that unused pensions count for inheritance tax from 6 April 2027.
  • Cars and car finance. The car tax calculator now asks when the car was first registered, so older cars get the right band and electric cars registered before April 2017 show £20. The car finance page now covers the FCA redress scheme, which opened on 30 June 2026 for agreements from 2007 to 2024.
  • Savings and later life. The Premium Bonds calculator now uses NS&I’s September 2026 prize list, where £50 and £100 prizes are the most common. The equity release calculator uses current lifetime mortgage rates, starts at age 55, and stops remaining equity going below zero, as the no-negative-equity guarantee requires.
September 2026

Input bug fixed; BNPL, free school meals and landlord tax updated

  • Typing in six calculators fixed. In the VAT return, profit and loss, debt-to-income, life insurance, divorce settlement and annual tax summary calculators, each money box lost focus after the first digit, so you had to click back in for every number. They now take typing normally.
  • Buy now, pay later is regulated. The FCA has regulated BNPL since 15 July 2026: lenders must check you can afford it, you can complain to the Financial Ombudsman, and Section 75 protection applies. The BNPL calculator page still described regulation as coming.
  • Free school meals from September 2026. Every family on Universal Credit in England now qualifies for free school meals, but pupil premium and other linked help stay with families earning up to £7,400 a year. The free school meals calculator now shows both, and no longer offers tax credits as a route.
  • Landlords, property and capital allowances. The landlord tax calculator did not charge the Personal Allowance lost above £100,000 to rental profit and could show negative tax; the Section 24 credit is now capped as the law requires, with Scotland added. The property CGT calculator widened the 18% band for people with little other income, and the annual investment allowance calculator now applies full expensing or the 40% first-year allowance above £1 million.
  • Pay rises, umbrella pay and pensions. The pay rise calculator now works out take-home pay (a £1,400 rise on £35,000 is £84 a month after tax and NI, not £117). The umbrella calculator charged employer NI on the whole contract value and costed a weekly margin as if monthly. The Teachers’ Pension calculator understated the maximum lump sum by about 30% (it is 30/7 of the pension, not 3 times).
  • Housing and student loans. The rent vs buy calculator now uses the real mortgage balance, stamp duty, maintenance and selling costs; the shared ownership calculator checks the income cap and shows the largest share you can afford; and the student loan overpayment calculator compares what you would pay in total, with Plan 2 interest linked to income.
September 2026

Apprenticeship levy, student loans, speeding fines and FSCS cover corrected

  • Apprenticeship levy: no 10% top-up since 1 August 2026. Under the Growth and Skills Levy reforms the government stopped adding 10% to levy funds, and new funds now expire after 12 months instead of 24. The apprenticeship levy calculator still added the top-up. Training for apprentices aged 16 to 24 is now fully funded at any employer.
  • Student loans, speeding fines and the non-dom regime. The student loan repayment calculator charged 9% on each plan separately; with more than one undergraduate plan you repay 9% once, over the lowest threshold (£729 a year on £35,000 with Plans 1 and 2, not £1,234). The speeding fine calculator now uses the Sentencing Council bands for each speed limit and the starting point of each band: 40 mph in a 30 is Band A, a fine of half a week’s take-home pay. The non-dom calculator kept the Personal Allowance while claiming the 4-year foreign income regime, which costs you the allowance; it now shows whether claiming is worth it.
  • Savings: FSCS cover is £120,000. Deposit protection rose from £85,000 to £120,000 per person per bank on 1 December 2025. Our NS&I savings page still quoted the old limit, and three pages still gave the Premium Bonds prize rate as 3.80% (it is 4.35%). The offset mortgage calculator counted the savings themselves as “interest saved”, showing £50,025 instead of £20,025.
  • Pay, leave and benefits. The holiday entitlement calculator gave full-time workers 28 days whatever days they worked (4 days a week is 22.4). Shared Parental Pay was not capped at 37 paid weeks, and paternity pay now reflects the day-one right to paternity leave from 6 April 2026. Pension Credit rounds savings income up, as the rules require, and the childcare cost calculator asks how many hours you pay for.
  • Mortgages and pensions. The buy-to-let mortgage calculator now tests the rent at the regulator’s stress rate (pay rate plus 2 points, at least 5.5%, unless fixed for 5 years or more), and the salary sacrifice pension calculator shows the tax relief on relief-at-source contributions it had left at zero.
September 2026

Scottish tax above £100,000, pension relief and fuel prices corrected

  • Scottish income tax above £100,000 corrected. Scottish bands apply to income after the Personal Allowance, so when the allowance tapers above £100,000 every Scottish threshold moves down with it. The Scottish income tax, take-home pay and tax year comparison calculators kept the thresholds fixed and under-taxed Scottish earners above £100,000: on £150,000 the tax is £59,634.35, not £56,366.15. Figures below £100,000 are unchanged.
  • Thresholds are frozen until April 2031. Budget 2025 extended the freeze on the Personal Allowance, the higher-rate threshold and the National Insurance thresholds by three years. Our tax year comparison still said the freeze ended in 2028.
  • Pension tax relief, shared parental leave and NHS pay. The pension tax relief calculator missed the Personal Allowance restored in the £100,000 to £125,140 band (relief of £15,084 on a £25,140 contribution, 60%) and gave 40% instead of 45% at the top rate; it now also handles Scotland. The shared parental leave calculator counted the two compulsory weeks twice. The NHS pay calculator now deducts NHS Pension contributions, uses the real 2026/27 pay points and adds London weighting (HCAS).
  • Fuel prices updated. Six motoring calculators, including fuel cost and MPG, assumed petrol at 135p a litre. The government’s weekly average for the week of 21 September 2026 was 172p (diesel 196p), so every cost per mile was about a fifth too low.
  • Child Benefit charge, Marriage Allowance and overdrafts. The High Income Child Benefit Charge page said the charge moved to household income in April 2026; that plan was dropped and it is still based on your own income, and you can now pay it through your tax code. The Marriage Allowance page wrongly excluded Scottish intermediate-rate taxpayers, who do qualify. The overdraft calculator treated the EAR as a simple rate, overstating the cost of a short overdraft by about 17%.
  • Contractors, landlords and heating. The IR35 calculator stopped taxing the director’s salary once income passed £100,000, and the page overstated the gap between working inside and outside IR35. The heat pump calculator now takes your heating oil price and deducts the Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant (£9,000 when replacing oil or LPG until March 2027).
September 2026

Salary sacrifice, bonus, dividend and care calculators corrected

  • Salary sacrifice NI from April 2029 is now law, with a £2,000 allowance. The National Insurance Contributions (Employer Pensions Contributions) Act 2026 received Royal Assent on 29 April. The first £2,000 a year you sacrifice into a pension stays free of NI; above that, both you and your employer pay NI. Our salary sacrifice 2029 calculator removed the whole NI saving, so on a £50,000 salary with £5,000 sacrificed it showed a £400 loss. The real figure is £240, and it now shows the employer’s extra NI too.
  • Bonus NI and dividend tax corrected. The bonus tax calculator worked out NI over the whole year, but employees pay NI pay period by pay period, so a £5,000 bonus on a £35,000 salary loses £176 in NI, not £400. Directors can switch to the annual method. The dividend tax calculator now lets unused Personal Allowance cover dividends (£20,000 of dividends with no other income is taxed £744.98, not £2,096.25) and applies the taper above £100,000.
  • Inheritance tax and probate. The inheritance tax calculator tapered the residence nil-rate band after the spouse exemption; the law tests the whole estate first, and the band is capped at the value of the home left to children, which you can now enter. The probate fee calculator charged £16 for every copy of the grant; copies ordered with the application have cost £2 since 6 July 2026.
  • Care costs, employer costs and visa fees. The care cost calculator now uses 2026 care-home fees, lets residents keep the £31.80 Personal Expenses Allowance and protects the £241.45 Minimum Income Guarantee for care at home. The employer cost calculator charged pension on the whole salary instead of qualifying earnings (£862.80, not £1,050, on £35,000). The visa fee calculator page now quotes the April 2026 fees throughout, charges children the £776 health surcharge, adds the £130 citizenship ceremony and shows the Graduate visa at 2 years (18 months for applications from 1 January 2027).
  • Car import, car insurance and VAT registration. The car import duty calculator page still described non-EU duty at the motor caravan rate; passenger cars pay 10%, individual vehicle approval costs £199 and cars over 10 years old are exempt. The car insurance estimator took a no-claims discount off prices that already included one, so it showed about £160 a year; it is now calibrated to the ABI average of £566. The VAT threshold calculator said a steady £6,000 a month would cross £90,000 in three months; at that rate it never does.
  • Credit cards and mortgages. The credit card repayment calculator treated APR as a simple annual rate, overstating interest; it now converts it properly and compares paying the minimum. The mortgage affordability calculator caps borrowing at 95% loan-to-value, takes off existing credit commitments and shows the monthly payment at the current average two-year fix of 5.73%. Pages that still described the Bank of England’s fixed stress test, withdrawn in 2022, now say lenders set their own.
September 2026

State Pension age, spouse visa and redundancy calculators corrected

  • Corrected: State Pension age for people born in 1960 and early 1961. The State Pension age calculator gave everyone born in 1960 an age of 67. Anyone born before 6 April 1960 reaches it at 66, and those born 6 April 1960 to 5 March 1961 at 66 plus 1 to 11 months, so some people were shown months still to wait for a pension they can already claim. It now follows the tables in the Pensions Act.
  • Corrected: whose income counts for a spouse visa. The spouse visa calculator added the applicant’s own earnings to the £29,000 test. For a first visa from outside the UK only your UK partner’s earnings count; the calculator now asks which route you are on and works out the savings you would need in total.
  • Redundancy weeks and short service fixed. The redundancy pay, settlement agreement and employment tribunal calculators counted a year at the higher rate half a year early, and paid redundancy with under 2 years’ service. The settlement calculator no longer adds an assumed ex-gratia payment of half your salary; you enter what you have been offered, and it now includes NI on notice and holiday pay.
  • Electric cars get the Congestion Charge discount. The ULEZ calculator charged electric cars the full £18; with Auto Pay they pay £13.50. TfL penalties are now shown at £180 (£90 if paid within 14 days), and the closed London scrappage scheme is no longer presented as open.
  • Childcare savings no longer overstated. The 30 hours childcare calculator assumed your weekly fee bought exactly 30 hours. It now asks how many hours you use, so a full-time place shows the funded hours covering 30 of them.
September 2026

Mortgage rates, Winter Fuel Payment for couples, and inheritance tax on pensions

  • Mortgage rates brought up to date. Our mortgage pages still described two-year fixes at 3.8% to 4.5%. Fixed rates rose again through 2026 as swap rates climbed, and Moneyfacts put the average two-year fix at 5.73% and the average SVR at 7.13% in mid-September. The remortgage calculator now judges a switch over the length of the new deal rather than the whole term.
  • Winter Fuel Payment for couples of different ages. Where one partner is 80 or over and the other is not, the older partner gets £200 and the younger £100; the Winter Fuel Payment calculator was showing £150. The opt-out for this winter has closed, and HMRC starts recovering payments from people over £35,000 through tax codes in January 2027.
  • Inheritance tax on pensions is now law. The pension IHT calculator described the April 2027 change as a proposal and said the pension scheme pays. Under the Finance Act 2026 the personal representatives are liable, and the calculator now removes the residence nil-rate band above £2 million, which on a £1.9m estate with a £400k pension adds £60,000 of tax.
  • Employer NI and the Employment Allowance. The employer NI rise calculator set the whole £10,500 allowance against the rise. A firm that already claimed £5,000 only gains £5,500, so ten staff on £30,000 cost £3,158 a year more, not nothing.
  • Electric cars will pay 3p a mile from April 2028. The government confirmed Electric Vehicle Excise Duty in July 2026: 3p a mile for battery EVs and 1.5p for plug-in hybrids, on top of VED. The pay-per-mile calculator has been rebuilt around it.
  • Plan 4 student loans. The Plan 4 page worked its £40,000 example from an old threshold. Repayments are £558.45 a year, not £774.45, and loans are written off after 30 years.
  • Also corrected: the capital allowances calculator now gives the AIA on integral features and the new 40% first-year allowance to sole traders; the pension lump sum calculator caps tax-free cash at £268,275 and taxes the rest through the bands; EPC pages give the confirmed 2030 Band C deadline for rentals and the grants still open; council tax pages use the 2026/27 figures; and the zero-hours, working hours and benefits and adoption pay pages use the current minimum wage bands and earnings limits.
September 2026

A children’s BMI calculator that uses real centiles, and a base rate that was a year out of date

  • The children’s BMI calculator now uses real growth centiles. It used to compare a child’s BMI with a rough straight line and ignored whether the child was a boy or a girl, so a healthy 10-year-old boy at 140 cm and 29 kg was labelled underweight. The children’s BMI calculator now works out the exact centile from the UK-WHO and UK90 reference that NHS growth charts use, by age in months and sex. That boy sits on the 15th centile, a healthy weight.
  • Bank of England base rate: several pages were a year behind. Bank Rate has been 3.75% since December 2025, but our late payment, annuity, inflation and mortgage rate pages still quoted 4.75% or 4.5%. Statutory interest on a late invoice is therefore 11.75%, not 12.75%, and a tracker at base plus 0.5% costs 4.25%.
  • Making Tax Digital deadlines corrected. Quarterly updates are due on the 7th of August, November, February and May, not the 5th, and the £20,000 band joins in April 2028 rather than being put off indefinitely. HMRC is not giving penalty points for late quarterly updates during 2026/27. See the MTD calculator and readiness check.
  • SIPP tax relief for higher and additional-rate taxpayers was overstated. On £500 a month, the SIPP calculator showed £2,000 a year of extra relief for a 40% taxpayer. The correct figure is £1,500, and £1,875 at 45%. Tax-free cash is now capped at the £268,275 Lump Sum Allowance.
  • English for Skilled Worker visas is B2. New Skilled Worker applications have needed B2 English since 8 January 2026, and B1-only tests no longer count. Settlement applications will need B2 from 26 March 2027. The ILR and visa points pages now say so, and priority ILR decisions take about 5 working days, not 8 weeks.
  • Toll charges brought up to date. The Dartford Crossing is £3.50, the M6 Toll £12 for the full length, the Humber Bridge £2, the Tyne Tunnel £2.60 and the Mersey Gateway £2.40. The road trip calculator example now costs £363 rather than £355.
  • Housing Benefit for pensioners. Most new Housing Benefit claims now come from people over State Pension age, but the Housing Benefit calculator only knew the working-age allowance. It now has a State Pension age option (£238.00 a week single), and the worked example uses the 2026/27 working-age figure of £95.55 instead of £90.50.
  • Also corrected: worked examples on the business mileage pages added 55p miles at the old 45p total; side hustle and freelance examples charged National Insurance that is not due, and the side hustle calculator now shows the 60% rate between £100,000 and £125,140. The solicitor fee calculator uses the £526 probate fee, the home buying calculator the full Land Registry scale, the EV salary sacrifice calculator takes your actual lease cost, and the annual allowance calculator applies the £200,000 threshold income test before tapering.
September 2026

AIM shares, the maternity pay example and BADR corrected in our explainers

  • AIM shares get 50% inheritance tax relief, not 100%. Since 6 April 2026, AIM shares and other shares not listed on a recognised stock exchange get 50% Business Relief however large the estate, and they do not use up the £2.5m allowance for 100% relief. The inheritance tax calculator page still listed AIM shares among those getting full relief. It also said the £325,000 nil-rate band is frozen until 2030; Budget 2025 extended the freeze to 5 April 2031.
  • Our maternity pay worked example was £235.62 short. It priced the 33 flat-rate weeks at last year’s £187.18, so £600 average weekly earnings showed £9,416.94 over 39 weeks. At the 2026/27 rate of £194.32 it is £9,652.56. The maternity pay calculator itself was already using £194.32. Small employers also reclaim 109% of statutory maternity and paternity pay, not the 103% we quoted.
  • Business Asset Disposal Relief is 18% from 6 April 2026. The CGT on shares page said it rose to 14% this April and that EMI shares escape CGT altogether. 14% was the 2025/26 rate, and BADR is a reduced rate rather than an exemption: EMI shares qualify once the option is two years old, and the gain is taxed at 18% instead of 24%.
September 2026

Teacher pay updated for September 2026, child maintenance bands corrected

  • Teachers in England got 3.5% from 1 September 2026. The teacher pay calculator now uses the new pay ranges: M1 outside London is £34,069 and M6 £46,940, with the London ranges and headteacher groups raised by the same 3.5%. The government accepted the award on 1 July and it is backdated to 1 September; the official 2026 pay document is due in mid-October.
  • Corrected: child maintenance bands. Our child maintenance guide said nothing is due below £100 a week and that £7 is paid between £100 and £200. The nil rate is below £7, the £7 flat rate covers £7 to £100, and between £100 and £200 the reduced rate is £7 plus 17% to 31% of the income over £100. The calculator now works out that reduced rate and ignores income above £3,000 a week, as the law does. The rates themselves have not changed for 2026/27.
September 2026

Six calculators rebuilt where the rules had moved on

  • Working from home tax relief ended for employees on 6 April 2026. The working from home calculator was still offering a £6 a week claim for 2026/27. It now shows £0 for 2026/27, still values backdated claims for 2022/23 to 2025/26 where your employer required you to work at home, and explains the £6 a week your employer can still pay tax-free.
  • Corrected: the ILR calculator offered a route that does not exist. It told Skilled Workers they could settle after 3 years on £45,300 or more; the rule is 5 years with no salary shortcut. The ILR calculator now checks the real absence rule, no more than 180 days in any 12 months, instead of a 450-day total, and uses the £3,226 fee from 8 April 2026.
  • Corrected: there is no Agricultural Wages Order for England. Our farm worker pay calculator showed English grades 1 to 6 at up to £18.13 an hour. England abolished its order in 2013, so farm workers there are on the minimum wage. The calculator now covers England, the Welsh grades A to E and the Scottish rate separately.
  • Personal injury figures rebuilt. The personal injury calculator put whiplash at up to £50,000. Road traffic whiplash lasting up to 2 years is paid on a fixed tariff of £275 to £4,975, and every other injury now uses the brackets from the 18th edition of the Judicial College Guidelines (April 2026), with shoulder, knee and PTSD added.
  • Council tax regional averages updated to 2026/27. The council tax calculator held figures about two years old for eight English regions, between £206 and £352 too low. The North West average Band D is now £2,479, not £2,127.
  • London teacher pay uses the real pay ranges. The teacher pay calculator added a flat £5,000, £2,000 or £1,000 for London. Inner London M1 is actually £40,317 against £32,916 elsewhere, and the gap passes £10,000 on the Upper Pay Range.
  • Also corrected: Statutory Sick Pay explainers still described waiting days and a £129 earnings test, both abolished in April 2026. The spouse visa first grant is 2 years 9 months, charged as three years of health surcharge, and children no longer raise the £29,000 income requirement. Help to Save needs only £1 of take-home pay on Universal Credit. The R&D calculator now pays loss-makers 16.2% under the merged scheme or about 27% under ERIS. The SFI calculator is on SFI26 rates, and the ESA support group is £145.90 a week.
September 2026

Student loan interest rose to 4.1% on 1 September

  • The RPI rate that sets student loan interest is 4.1% for the year to 31 August 2027, up from 3.2%. Plan 1, Plan 4 and Plan 5 charge that rate flat. Plan 2 runs from 4.1% on income of £29,385 or less up to the 6% ceiling at £52,885 and above, and Postgraduate loans sit at the capped 6%. Repayment thresholds are unchanged: £26,900 on Plan 1, £29,385 on Plan 2, £33,795 on Plan 4, £25,000 on Plan 5 and £21,000 on a Postgraduate Loan.
  • Corrected: eight calculators still described the old rate in their explanatory text. The Student Loan Interest page put Plan 5 at “roughly 3.0%” and Plan 1 at “6-7%”; both are 4.1%. The Postgraduate Loan and Postgraduate Loan Cost pages described interest as “RPI, around 3-4%” when the calculators were correctly applying 6%. The calculators themselves were right in every case.
  • Corrected: two worked examples were built on an old repayment threshold. The Plan 2 illustration on a £35,000 salary showed a deduction of £57.79 a month, which is 9% above £27,295 — the threshold from three years ago. Against the current £29,385 it is £42.11 a month, or £505.35 a year. With interest recalculated at 4.55% for that salary, the balance on £45,000 grows by about £1,542 a year rather than £1,197.
  • Corrected: Plan 4 write-off is 30 years, not 25. The Plan 4 (Scotland) explainer said those loans clear 25 years after the April you were first due to repay. It is 30 years, or age 65 for loans taken before 1 August 2007, whichever comes first.
September 2026

Every explainer rewritten as proper prose, and disclaimers that name the real source

  • The “How It Works” section on 339 calculators has been rewritten from note-style fragments into full explanatory text. The maths behind each tool is unchanged; the figures were kept, repeated statements were merged, and a handful of internal contradictions between the opening paragraphs and the notes beneath them were resolved in favour of the verified figure.
  • FAQs now ask real questions about each calculator. Generic filler such as “Is this based on 2026/27 rates?” and headings posing as questions have been replaced with the questions people actually search for, answered from the page’s own figures.
  • Disclaimers name the source behind each category. A gardening or health calculator no longer claims its figures come from HMRC; each page now cites the body that actually publishes them (Ofgem and Ofwat for energy, the NHS for health, the RHS and manufacturer coverage data for gardening, and so on).
  • Category pages have a proper introduction explaining what the group of tools covers and which calculator answers which question.
  • Corrected: five worked examples were still using last year’s rates. The State Pension example divided the current £241.30 a week by 35 years but printed the old answer, £176.96 instead of £193.04. Statutory Sick Pay showed £23.35 a day rather than £24.65, and still deducted three waiting days that were abolished on 6 April 2026. The High Income Child Benefit Charge added £27.05 and £17.90 to £43.30 instead of £44.95. Shared Parental Pay multiplied by an old weekly rate, and the Congestion Charge example still ran on £15 a day rather than the £18 charged since 2 January 2026. The calculators themselves were right throughout; only the illustrations were stale.
  • Corrected: Capital Gains Tax rates in prose. Three pages still described the pre-Budget 10% and 20% rates as current. Since 30 October 2024 every asset class is taxed at 18% or 24%, which is what the calculators have always applied. Pension Credit also quoted last year’s guarantee of £218.15 a week; it is £238.00 for a single person and £363.25 for a couple.
  • Removed: text that belonged on another page. The livestock unit calculator carried five paragraphs explaining share options and EMI schemes, and the employers’ liability page had four paragraphs about Carer’s Allowance. Both were pasted in by mistake and are gone.
  • Fixed: the fence paint, shoe size, clothing size and savings goal pages lost their explanatory text and worked example on 1 September, when their outdated source links were removed. The text is back.
August 2026

Blind Person’s Allowance corrected, and our sole trader vs limited company answer has changed

  • Blind Person’s Allowance is £3,250 for 2026/27, not the £3,130 we were using — that was last year’s figure. The Blind Person’s Allowance calculator was also handing back only 20% of the allowance to higher-rate taxpayers, showing roughly half the real saving. A 40% taxpayer now correctly sees £1,300 a year, and a 45% taxpayer £1,462.50.
  • Incorporating no longer cuts your tax bill if you draw everything out. Our sole trader vs limited company tools were charging a flat 25% Corporation Tax with no marginal relief and taxing every dividend at the basic 10.75%. With both corrected, the sole trader comes out ahead across £20,000–£100,000 of profit — by about £5,300 at £100,000. The case for a company now rests on liability protection, retaining profit and pension contributions rather than on tax alone.
  • Contractor day rates were coming out about 15% too low. The day rate calculator assumed a flat 25% uplift over your target take-home instead of solving for it. To take home £60,000 over 220 days you need £405 a day, not the £345 we were quoting. The IR35 calculator now also deducts employer NI from the inside-IR35 side, which it had been leaving out.
  • Premium Bonds now pay 4.35%, and we were three numbers behind. NS&I raised the prize fund rate from 3.80% to 4.35% and shortened the odds from 22,000 to 21,000 to 1 for the September 2026 draw. Our Premium Bonds calculator was still on 3.80% while the surrounding text said 4.00%, so a £10,000 holding showed an expected £380 or £400 depending on where you looked. It is £435 now, and £50,000 expects £2,175 a year rather than £1,900.
  • Company car tax was a percentage point too high on most cars, and wrong on every plug-in hybrid. HMRC’s table pauses at 21% across 70–79 g/km before resuming at 22%, and our company car tax calculator stepped straight through it, so everything from 75 g/km up came out 1 point high. Separately, cars emitting 1–50 g/km are banded by electric range, not CO2 — from 4% at 130+ miles to 16% under 30 miles. We were using a flat 5%. The calculator now asks for the electric range when it matters, and every band from 0 to 200 g/km matches HMRC’s published table.
  • Retail, Hospitality and Leisure relief has ended, and importing a car costs more than we said. The 40% RHL business rates discount ran in 2025/26 and stopped on 31 March 2026; from April 2026 it is replaced by permanently lower RHL multipliers with no cash cap and nothing to apply for. Our car import duty calculator was also charging 6.5% on non-EU imports — that is the motor caravan rate. Passenger cars are 10%. London’s average Band D council tax is now £2,068, not £1,902.
  • The maintenance loan calculator was overstating the loan for higher household incomes. It treated £10,991 as the smallest London loan, but that is simply where the published gov.uk table stops, at a £45,000 household income. The loan keeps tapering below that to a basic rate of £7,039 in London, £5,048 away from home outside London and £4,013 living with parents. The maintenance loan calculator also used a straight line between the maximum and the minimum instead of the real withdrawal rate, so a London student on a £70,000 household income was shown £10,991 rather than £7,039. It now applies the actual taper — £1 of loan for every £6.36 to £6.54 of income above £25,000 — and reproduces every row of the official table exactly.
  • Our Building Regulations U-value summary mixed up two different Part L targets. The insulation calculator quoted 0.30 W/m²K for cavity wall insulation and 0.18 for a floor. Those are the standards for building a new element, such as an extension. When you upgrade something the house already has, Approved Document L asks for 0.55 for a filled cavity wall and 0.25 for a floor. The loft figure (0.16) and the replacement window figure (1.4, or a Window Energy Rating of Band B) were right and stay as they are — including under the 2026 edition of Approved Document L, which takes effect on 24 March 2027.
  • Emergency pension tax and tax refund estimates were starting the 45% rate £12,570 of income too early (48% in Scotland), overstating the bill by up to £628 — £377 for Scottish taxpayers. Both are corrected.
July 2026

Court fees rose on 13 July, and we removed a Class 2 NI charge that no longer exists

  • HMCTS uprated 170 court fees by 2.6% on 13 July 2026. Divorce is now £628 (was £612), possession claims £415, financial orders £321, and general applications £126–£321. Updated across the court fee, solicitor fee and divorce-cost tools. Money-claim issue fees were not part of this uprating.
  • Sole trader vs limited company no longer charges Class 2 NI. Mandatory Class 2 was abolished in April 2024, but the comparison was still adding about £182 a year to the sole-trader side, which slightly favoured the limited-company result. Corrected, along with the worked example on the sole trader tax page.
  • Student support figures refreshed: Disabled Students' Allowance is £27,783 a year (guidance had an old £25,000), and the Doctoral Loan is £31,122 for courses starting from August 2026 (was showing a two-year-old £29,390).
  • Carer's Allowance £86.45/week corrected on the calculator listing, the Pension Credit carer addition set to £48.15, and several pension/salary-sacrifice passages updated to the current 15% employer NI rate.
July 2026

Pensions, court fees, Right to Buy, student loans & a new mansion-tax tool

  • Teachers' Pension 2026/27 contributions — updated to the new salary bands and rates (7.4% up to £36,199, rising to 12% above £104,414) on the Teachers' Pension and Teacher Pay calculators.
  • Right to Buy caps are now regional — following SI 2024/1073, the Right to Buy calculator lets you pick your region (London is lowest at £16,000, up to £38,000 in the South East).
  • Court hearing fees refreshed to the current EX50 scale (small-claims £27–£346, fast track £619, multi-track £1,334) on the Court Fee calculator.
  • Student maintenance loan minimums fixed for 2026/27 (London £10,991, outside London £7,739, at home £6,060) on the Maintenance Loan calculator.
  • New High-Value Council Tax Surcharge tool — the HVCTS calculator now models the proposed £2,500–£7,500 annual charge on homes worth £2m+ from April 2028. Employment Allowance guidance also updated — the £100,000 eligibility cap was abolished in April 2025.
July 2026

HMRC mileage rate rises to 55p — first change since 2011

  • Approved Mileage Allowance Payment up 45p → 55p for the first 10,000 business miles by car or van, announced 21 May 2026 and backdated to 6 April 2026 — the first rise since 2011. The 25p rate above 10,000 miles, plus the 24p motorcycle and 20p bicycle rates, are unchanged. Our mileage and business-mileage calculators and all related guidance now use 55p.
July 2026

8 new calculators + search, sharing, favourites, print and embeds

  • NHS Pension and LGPS calculators — career-average estimates for 1.3m NHS staff and 6m local-government members, with contribution tiers and lump-sum options
  • Tax year comparison — your take-home in 2025/26 vs 2026/27 side by side, and what actually changed in April
  • Adoption pay calculator — Statutory Adoption Pay week by week, completing our family of statutory-pay tools
  • Favourites & recents — star any calculator and find it (plus your recently used ones) on the homepage; stored only on your device
  • Print / save as PDF — print any calculation cleanly (no menus or ads), ideal for taking to a broker or adviser
  • Embed on your site — every calculator now has an embeddable widget: click "Embed" to copy the iframe code
  • Winter Fuel Payment calculator — will you get the 2026/27 payment, how much, and does the £35,000 income test claw it back? Includes the opt-out deadline (20 September 2026)
  • Pro-rata salary calculator — part-time and term-time-only pay from an FTE salary, with holiday entitlement
  • Pension emergency tax calculator — Month-1 withholding on your first withdrawal, the tax actually due, and which form (P55 / P53Z / P50Z) reclaims the difference
  • Tax refund calculator — stopped working mid-year? Estimate your PAYE refund and see the rebates people commonly miss
  • Search from any page — the header now has instant calculator search (press Ctrl/⌘ K)
  • Share your calculation — the top money calculators can now copy a link that restores your exact inputs
  • Take-home pay calculator upgraded — Scottish bands, bonus, salary sacrifice, State-Pension-age NI exemption, and a reverse mode: enter your target take-home to find the salary you need
  • "Rates verified" badge — every money calculator now shows the date its rates were last verified against official sources
June 2026

2026/27 figures verified — accuracy corrections

  • Every rate re-checked against official sources — all figures verified against GOV.UK, GOV.SCOT and Revenue Scotland, with ongoing weekly monitoring so changes are caught quickly
  • Agricultural wages corrected — Scotland uses a single statutory rate (£12.71/hr, plus a £1.91/hr qualified-worker premium), not graded tiers; the Welsh grades A–E and the 2026 Seasonal Worker visa details (42,900-place quota, £340 fee, no health surcharge) now match the current orders
  • Farming payments updated — SFI winter cover-crop rate set to £129/hectare and the delinked-payment (BPS) phase-out confirmed for 2027
  • Motoring, benefits & legal figures refreshed — 2026/27 car tax (VED) first-year rates, Universal Credit childcare caps and work thresholds, the Right to Buy discount-cap reform, the whiplash compensation tariff, teacher pay scales and the postgraduate Master’s loan amount
June 2026

Now on the App Store — native iOS app launched

  • Calks.UK is on the App Store — download the free app for iPhone and iPad: Calks.UK on the App Store
  • Works fully offline — all 330+ calculators in your pocket, no connection needed
  • Always current — rate changes and new calculators arrive automatically, no app update required
April 2026

2026/27 Tax Year — Full Rate Update

  • All tax calculators updated — Income Tax, National Insurance, Capital Gains Tax, Dividend Tax, Stamp Duty and more now reflect 2026/27 rates effective from 6 April 2026
  • National Living Wage — Increased to £12.71/hr for 21+ (was £12.21), £10.85 for 18–20 (was £10.00), £8.00 for under 18 / apprentice (was £7.55)
  • State Pension — Triple-lock uprating to £241.30/week (£12,547.60/year), up from £221.20/week
  • Student loan thresholds — Plan 1: £26,900 (was £24,990), Plan 2: £29,385 (was £27,295), Plan 4: £33,795 (was £31,395). Plan 5 frozen at £25,000
  • Statutory pay rates — SSP up to £123.25/week (was £116.75), SMP/SPP £194.32/week (was £187.18)
  • Child Benefit — Eldest child £27.05/week (was £26.05), additional children £17.90/week (was £17.25 each)
  • Frozen rates — Personal Allowance (£12,570), tax bands, NI rates (8%/2%/15%), VAT (20%), Stamp Duty bands, ISA (£20,000), CGT exemption (£3,000) and Inheritance Tax (£325k/£175k) all unchanged from 2025/26
April 2026

Calks.uk Launch

  • 330+ calculators — Launched with over 330 free UK calculators covering tax, salary, mortgage, pensions, VAT, benefits, business and more
  • 20 categories — Tax & HMRC, Salary & Employment, Mortgage & Property, Pensions, Savings, Loans, Business, Benefits, Motoring, Health, Construction, Energy, Education, Everyday, Insurance, Immigration, Legal, Farming, Maths and Gardening
  • Privacy first — All calculations run in your browser. No personal data is collected or stored
  • Dark mode — Full dark mode support across the entire site
  • Mobile optimised — Responsive design that works on phones, tablets and desktops

Coming Soon

  • Save and share calculator results
  • PDF export for tax calculations
  • Historical tax year comparisons
  • Save and share calculator results

Want to be notified of major updates? Email info@calks.uk with "Updates" in the subject line.