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What The Student Loan Repayment Calculator Works Out
- Repayment threshold: the salary above which repayments start for your plan. For 2026/27: Plan 1 GBP 26,900, Plan 2 GBP 29,385, Plan 4 (Scotland) GBP 33,795, Plan 5 GBP 25,000 and Postgraduate GBP 21,000. Which plan you are on depends on when and where you studied.
- Monthly repayment: 9% of everything you earn above the threshold (6% for postgraduate loans), divided by 12. A Plan 2 graduate on GBP 35,000 repays about GBP 42 a month whether they owe GBP 5,000 or GBP 50,000: repayments are income-based, not balance-based.
- Per year: the annual deduction. It stops automatically in any pay period where you earn below the threshold, and the balance never appears on credit files, though lenders count the monthly deduction in affordability checks.
- Combined monthly deduction (advanced): a postgraduate loan is repaid alongside an undergraduate plan, so a masters graduate can pay 9% on one threshold and 6% on another at the same time, an effective 15% marginal deduction on top of tax and National Insurance.
- Deduction in the bonus month (advanced): payroll applies a twelfth of the threshold to each month's pay, so a bonus is charged at the full 9% in the month it lands and is never averaged out. Unlike income tax there is no year-end reconciliation unless you file a tax return.
- Repayment in five years (advanced): your deduction after five years of pay rises at your chosen growth rate, with thresholds held flat. The Plan 2 threshold is frozen from April 2027 to 2030, which pulls more income into repayment over time.
- Will you clear it? (advanced): enter your balance and interest rate to run the loan year by year with your salary growth until it is cleared or written off (25 years for Plan 1, 30 for Plans 2 and 4 and postgraduate, 40 for Plan 5, counted from the April you first became liable). Plan 2 interest is RPI-linked and varies with earnings, typically 4% to 7%; Plan 5 charges RPI only.
- Year-by-year table (advanced): salary, repaid, interest added and balance left for every year. Most Plan 2 graduates never clear the balance before write-off, which is why voluntary overpayments are usually money wasted unless you are a high earner.
Source and further reading: GOV.UK: repaying your student loan.