The cleanest salary + dividend split for your one-person company.

A director-shareholder of a small UK limited company can choose how to take money out: salary (deductible against Corporation Tax but creates Income Tax + employee NI + employer NI), dividends (paid from post-Corporation-Tax profit but at lower personal rates), or pension contributions (deductible against Corporation Tax with no personal tax). The optimal mix depends on profit, age, and personal circumstances.

For 2026/27 the rule of thumb is: pay yourself a salary up to the NI lower threshold (no NI either side, full state-pension qualifying year), then dividends up to the basic-rate band, then employer pension contributions for everything above. This planner lets you test that mix against your actual company profit and personal allowance use.

Your inputs

Company profit before salary and employer pension

Planned gross salary

Planned dividends

Employer pension contribution

Other personal taxable income

Main planning priority

Estimated total value extracted

£0 Waiting for a company extraction read.

Salary kept after tax and NIC£0

Dividends kept after dividend tax£0

Employer pension value£0

Employer NIC£0

Corporation tax£0

Extraction efficiency0%

What this means

This tool starts on the company side first, because dividends do not appear by magic. Salary, employer NIC, and pension contributions all change the corporation-tax base before you even get to the personal tax side.

Professional read

Key assumption

The company is treated as a standalone close company with no associated-company adjustment and no Employment Allowance, so the salary plus dividend picture stays conservative.

Common mistake

Comparing salary and dividends only on the personal side while ignoring employer NIC and corporation tax, which is where a lot of the extraction picture actually changes.

Best next action

If the employer pension contribution looks attractive here, pair this with the annual allowance calculator before assuming all of that pension funding is charge-free.

When it breaks down

Multiple companies, Scottish income tax, student loan, director loan planning, or benefit-in-kind routes need a fuller extraction model than this first pass.

Company and personal tax stack

Line	Amount

Source basis: HMRC 2026/27 PAYE thresholds, GOV.UK corporation-tax rates and marginal-relief bands, and the standard 2026/27 dividend allowance and dividend tax rates for rest-of-UK taxpayers.

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