What a P60 is and why it matters
A P60 is the year-end summary of pay and tax that an employer must give every employee who was on the payroll on 5 April. Legally, it has to reach you by 31 May. It is the official record of three things HMRC may ask you to prove later: your gross pay for the year, the income tax taken via PAYE, and the National Insurance you paid on Class 1 contributions.
You will need it for: Self Assessment, claiming a tax refund, applying for a mortgage, claiming tax credits or Universal Credit, claiming disability or housing benefits, and applying for student finance for a child. Keep every P60 you ever receive for at least six years (HMRC's standard look-back period for assessments) — many people keep theirs forever, and the storage cost is roughly zero.
Box-by-box: what each section actually says
The standard HMRC P60 layout has not changed materially in years. The boxes you care about are:
- Employer details (top left) — name, PAYE reference (a code like
123/A4567), and employer's address. Useful when filing Self Assessment because the PAYE reference is one of the questions asked. - Your details (top right) — your name, NI number, payroll number, and the tax code in use at the end of the year. The tax code on a P60 is the code on 5 April, not necessarily the one you had all year — if it changed during the year, only the latest is shown.
- Pay and Income Tax details — "In this employment" — pay you received from this employer in this tax year, and tax deducted. Critical: this is the figure your employer paid you, not your contract gross. If you sacrificed salary or had unpaid leave, the box reflects what was actually paid.
- Pay and Income Tax details — "In previous employment(s)" — pay and tax from any earlier job in the same tax year, taken from your P45 when you joined. If this box is blank but you had a previous job, your P45 was not processed properly — flag this with payroll, because it can affect refunds.
- Total for year — the sum of the two rows above. This is the figure HMRC uses to assess whether you over- or under-paid tax for the year.
- National Insurance contributions — broken down by category letter. Most employees see Category A. The "earnings at the LEL" box is essentially symbolic; the box that matters is "earnings above the PT, up to and including the UEL", because that is the slice on which 8% Class 1 NI was charged in 2026/27.
- Statutory payments — any Statutory Sick Pay, Maternity Pay, Adoption Pay or Shared Parental Pay paid through payroll in the year.
- Student loan deductions — total student loan repaid via payroll in the year, if applicable. Note this is the total, not split by plan type.
- Other items — usually blank, but can show widow's, widower's or surviving civil partner's pension if relevant.
The four checks worth doing before you file it
- Gross pay matches your last March payslip's "year-to-date" gross. If your March payslip shows YTD gross of £42,103.45 and your P60 shows £41,980, somebody made a posting error. Most likely candidates: a March bonus paid after the cut-off date, or a correction to a previous month that went through but never updated the YTD totals on the payslip.
- Tax code on the P60 matches what your employer was actually using. If the P60 shows 1257L but you remember being on a K-code or BR for part of the year, that's fine — but make sure the underlying total tax figure looks right. The tax code decoder explains what each code means.
- NI category letter is correct. A is the standard adult employee. B was for married women paying reduced rate (almost extinct). C is for employees over State Pension age (no NI). H is for apprentices under 25. If the letter looks wrong, payroll has miscoded you and may have over- or under-deducted NI for the entire year.
- Total tax taken is roughly what the tax calculator says it should be for that gross income, with your tax code. If the variance is more than ~£200 either way, something is worth investigating — usually it is benefits-in-kind being collected via your tax code (which reduces your personal allowance and increases tax) or a refund still owed from a previous year.
If the numbers are wrong
The single right answer for "my P60 is wrong" is: contact your employer's payroll team first. They issue the P60 and they can issue a corrected one (sometimes called a "P60 substitute" or "amended P60"). HMRC cannot correct a P60 — only the employer can.
If you have left the employer and they will not respond, you can write to HMRC with the correction. They will not change the P60 itself but they will adjust their record of your pay and tax for the year, which is what matters for any refund or assessment. Use the HMRC letter decoder if you receive correspondence back you don't understand.
What to do with it after you have read it
- Check whether you are owed a refund. The emergency tax refund checker spots the most common refund situations: emergency-coded pension lump sums, partial-year work, and starter-rate wages. The how to claim a tax refund guide covers the four standard routes.
- If you also need to file Self Assessment, the P60 is the source for the "employment income" page. The self-assessment first-timer guide walks through the whole filing.
- File the P60 with your other tax records. A simple "Tax 2026-27" folder works — six years' worth of P60s, plus any P45s, P11Ds, and Self Assessment receipts.
Sources
HMRC: P60 — guidance for employees · Check your Income Tax for the current year. UK Tax Drag is educational and not regulated financial advice — see the content disclaimer.