Why Your Bonus Month Payslip Looks Wrong
Cumulative PAYE assumes you will earn that much every month. It corrects itself. Here is when, and how much comes back.
PAYE is cumulative. In the month a bonus lands, the system annualises your pay to date and taxes you as though every remaining month will look the same. A £5,000 bonus in month three makes PAYE briefly behave as though you are on a much larger salary.
It corrects itself over the following months without you doing anything, and by March the total is right. The one part that does not come back is the student loan, which is worked out per period and never reconciled across the year.
What a bonus is really worth
| Salary | Net gain | You keep | Marginal rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| £30,000 | £3,600 | 72.0% | 28.0% |
| £42,000 | £3,600 | 72.0% | 28.0% |
| £52,000 | £2,900 | 58.0% | 42.0% |
| £70,000 | £2,900 | 58.0% | 42.0% |
| £105,000 | £1,900 | 38.0% | 62.0% |
If you want to keep more of it
Bonus sacrifice is the cleanest use of salary sacrifice there is: you never see the money and never adjust to it. At a 42% marginal rate the trade is good; inside the Personal Allowance taper it is close to unarguable. The salary sacrifice calculator prices it.
Questions people actually ask
Are bonuses taxed at a higher rate?
Will I get the extra tax back?
The numbers this sits on
| Salary | Income tax | National Insurance | Take-home | A month | Effective rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £25,000 | £2,486 | £994 | £21,520 | £1,793 | 13.9% |
| £35,000 | £4,486 | £1,794 | £28,720 | £2,393 | 17.9% |
| £45,000 | £6,486 | £2,594 | £35,920 | £2,993 | 20.2% |
| £60,000 | £11,432 | £3,210 | £45,358 | £3,780 | 24.4% |
| £85,000 | £21,432 | £3,710 | £59,858 | £4,988 | 29.6% |
| £110,000 | £33,432 | £4,210 | £72,358 | £6,030 | 34.2% |
Every figure in that table is computed from the published 2026/27 rates by the same engine that runs the calculators on this site, so a number in an article and a number in a calculator can never drift apart. National Insurance uses the statutory period thresholds real payroll uses, which is why these figures reconcile with a payslip rather than nearly reconciling with one.
| Salary | England, Wales, NI | Scotland | With a Plan 2 loan | Keep from the next £1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £28,000 | 28.0% | 28.0% | 28.0% | £720.00 |
| £40,000 | 28.0% | 29.0% | 37.6% | £720.00 |
| £52,000 | 42.0% | 44.0% | 51.6% | £580.00 |
| £65,000 | 42.0% | 44.0% | 50.4% | £580.00 |
| £105,000 | 62.0% | 69.5% | 70.4% | £380.00 |
| £130,000 | 47.0% | 50.0% | 56.6% | £530.00 |
Work it out for yourself
- Take-home pay calculatorThe main calculator, all four UK nations.
- Pay rise calculatorWhat a raise really adds.
- Salary sacrificeWhat you are trading.
- Tax code checkerWhat each letter and prefix does.
Figures on this page are for the 2026/27 tax year (6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027) and were last checked on 29 August 2026. Every rate we use is listed on the sources page.