Best use of this Budget 2025 page
This is the practical, durable version of the Autumn 2025 Budget for this site. Rather than re-running the news cycle, it explains what the Budget did structurally, why a Budget dated 2025 governs your 2026/27 tax year, and exactly which calculators and guides to re-open now the working detail is published.
What did the Autumn 2025 Budget actually change for 2026/27?
The headline that reaches almost every UK earner is continuity, not change: the personal allowance and the higher-rate threshold stay frozen rather than rising with inflation. A frozen threshold is a stealth tax rise. As pay rises with inflation, more of your income is taxed and a larger share is pulled into the higher and additional-rate bands, even though the headline rates did not move. That mechanism, fiscal drag, is the single biggest reason a 2026/27 tax bill can be higher than 2025/26 on the same real income.
The specific measures, at a glance
- Dividend tax rose 2 percentage points from 6 April 2026 — the basic rate from 8.75% to 10.75% and the higher rate from 33.75% to 35.75% (the 39.35% additional rate and the £500 allowance are unchanged). The Section 455 charge on directors’ loans follows the upper rate to 35.75%. See the dividend tax calculator.
- The threshold freeze was extended to April 2031 — the £12,570 personal allowance and £50,270 higher-rate threshold are now frozen for three further years, which is exactly what keeps fiscal drag running.
- Savings and property income rates rise 2 points from April 2027 (to 22% basic, 42% higher, 47% additional). Pre-announced, so it does not change 2026/27 bills — the savings interest calculator uses the current 2026/27 rates.
- ISA reform from April 2027: the £20,000 annual allowance stays, but £8,000 of it is reserved for investment rather than cash for savers under 65. See the ISA guide.
- Salary-sacrifice pensions: from April 2029 only the first £2,000 a year of sacrificed pension contributions keeps its National Insurance exemption — worth knowing now if you are setting a long-term sacrifice level with the salary sacrifice calculator.
The exact 2026/27 numbers, the allowances, bands and thresholds, live on the dedicated rate pages. That is why this page routes you to them rather than freezing a figure here that would age the moment HMRC publishes an update.
Why does a 2025 Budget set your 2026/27 tax year?
UK Budgets are named for the calendar year they are delivered, but they legislate for the tax year that follows. The Autumn 2025 Budget is the event that fixed the allowances, thresholds and rules that apply from 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027, the 2026/27 tax year. So a page labelled 2025 is not out of date here: it is the origin document for the figures the rest of this site models for 2026/27.
What to re-check after the Autumn 2025 Budget
- What changed this tax year for the plain-English impact summary of the 2026/27 figures.
- UK Budget changes tracker for the running list of confirmed measures and what each one means.
- Fiscal drag tracker if frozen thresholds are the part you actually feel month to month.
- Tax Drag Calculator to put your own salary through the 2026/27 bands.
- Dividend vs Salary Calculator if company-owner extraction is part of the post-Budget question.
- Self-employed Toolkit if the measures you care about are VAT, expenses, turnover or business extraction.
Is the 2025 Budget still relevant in 2026/27?
Yes, and arguably more so than on the day it was delivered. Its measures are not a forecast any more; they are the live rules you are taxed under for the whole of 2026/27. Until the next fiscal event changes them, the Autumn 2025 Budget is the current rulebook, and the calculators above price it in for your own numbers.
Keeping this page accurate
Budget commentary ages quickly, so the durable value here is not a newspaper recap. It is translating the fiscal event into the exact calculators and guides that need a fresh look, and pointing to the official source for the working detail. The rate and allowance pages stay the single source of truth once each measure is implemented.
Official source: Budget 2025 on GOV.UK.
How UK Tax Drag holds itself to account
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