The Personal Savings Allowance (PSA) is a tax-free amount of UK savings interest you can receive each year. In 2026/27 it is £1,000 for basic-rate taxpayers, £500 for higher-rate, £0 for additional-rate. Interest above the PSA is taxed at your marginal income tax rate. Cash ISA interest sits outside the PSA — it's fully tax-free regardless of rate band.
How the PSA stacks with the starting rate
Two allowances apply to savings interest in 2026/27. Most people only ever use the PSA, but the second one — the £5,000 starting rate — can be useful for low-income savers.
- Personal Allowance (£12,570) — covers savings income before any tax. Applied first in priority.
- Starting Rate for Savings (£5,000 at 0%) — only available if your non-savings income (salary, pension) is below £17,570. The £5,000 starting rate band reduces by £1 for every £1 of non-savings income above £12,570.
- Personal Savings Allowance — £1,000 / £500 / £0 depending on your tax band.
The order: PA covers any income type. Then non-savings income fills bands. Then savings interest is allocated, using the starting rate band first (if available) and the PSA second. Then dividends.
PSA rates by tax band (2026/27)
| Tax band | PSA | Interest tax-free up to |
|---|---|---|
| Non-taxpayer (under £12,570 total income) | £1,000 | £18,570 (PA + start rate + PSA) |
| Basic rate (£12,571 – £50,270) | £1,000 | £1,000 of interest tax-free |
| Higher rate (£50,271 – £125,140) | £500 | £500 of interest tax-free |
| Additional rate (£125,141+) | £0 | None (above PA only) |
Note: dropping into a higher band reduces the PSA, so a £1 pay rise that crosses £50,270 cuts your PSA by £500. For someone earning at the band edge, this is one of several "salary cliff" effects.
How much cash savings give £1,000 of interest?
| Interest rate | Balance needed for £1,000 interest | £500 (higher rate cap) |
|---|---|---|
| 2.0% | £50,000 | £25,000 |
| 3.0% | £33,333 | £16,667 |
| 4.0% | £25,000 | £12,500 |
| 5.0% | £20,000 | £10,000 |
At 2026 savings rates (~4-5% on the best easy-access), a basic-rate taxpayer with more than £20,000-£25,000 in unprotected cash savings will exceed the PSA and start owing tax. The fix: move excess cash into a Cash ISA (£20,000/yr contribution cap), where interest is always tax-free.
How HMRC collects savings tax
Banks and building societies report savings interest to HMRC automatically each year. If you owe savings tax:
- If under £10,000 of taxable interest, HMRC usually adjusts your tax code the following year to collect it through PAYE.
- If over £10,000, you must file Self Assessment.
- If you have other Self Assessment triggers, savings interest is reported there.
You don't need to declare interest under the PSA, but it's still reported by your bank. HMRC matches the figures.
Calculate exact savings interest tax
The savings interest tax calculator applies the PA, starting rate, PSA and your marginal rate — for any balance, any rate, and any income.
Open the savings interest tax calculator →Sources and methodology
PSA rates and rules from gov.uk/apply-tax-free-interest-on-savings. Starting rate for savings from HMRC Savings and Investment Manual.
UK Tax Drag is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority and does not provide regulated financial advice — see the content disclaimer for the full position. The methodology page documents how every calculator is built and reviewed.
Related
- Savings interest tax calculator — precise tax on any savings balance
- Do I pay tax on savings interest? — the basic Q&A
- FSCS savings protection checker — related: protect your cash from bank failure
- ISA vs GIA calculator — when ISA wrapper saves enough tax to matter
- Full UK money glossary
- FAQ library
What counts as savings interest — and what doesn't
The PSA only applies to savings interest, which is a narrower category than many people assume. Getting the boundaries right matters, because income that falls outside the PSA is either taxed under a different set of rules or not taxable at all.
| Income type | Counts toward the PSA? |
|---|---|
| Interest from bank and building society accounts | Yes |
| Interest from NS&I accounts (e.g. Income Bonds, Direct Saver) | Yes |
| Interest distributions from gilts, corporate bonds and many bond funds | Yes |
| Interest paid on a credit-union or peer-to-peer loan | Yes |
| Most purchased life-annuity and some life-insurance gains | Treated as savings income |
| Interest inside a Cash ISA | No — already tax-free |
| Share dividends (incl. from funds) | No — uses the Dividend Allowance |
| Premium Bond prizes and most lottery/competition wins | No — tax-free, separate |
So the PSA is the allowance that decides whether your ordinary, taxable savings interest actually gets taxed. It does not stretch to dividends, and it is simply not needed for ISA interest, which is sheltered whatever your tax band.
The PSA is not the Dividend Allowance
One of the most common mix-ups is treating the PSA as a single "investment income" allowance. It isn't. Savings interest and dividends are taxed under entirely separate regimes, each with its own allowance and its own set of rates:
- Savings interest uses the PSA (£1,000 / £500 / £0). Interest above it is taxed at your normal income tax rates — 20%, 40% or 45%.
- Dividends use the separate Dividend Allowance, and dividends above that are taxed at the lower dividend rates rather than the main income tax rates.
The two allowances are additive: someone can use their full PSA against interest and their full Dividend Allowance against dividends in the same tax year. They never share a pot. If you hold a mix of cash savings and shares in a general (non-ISA) account, you need to track interest and dividends separately, because they land in different boxes on a tax return and are charged at different rates.
Why the PSA exists (and why "tax-free" can be misleading)
The PSA was introduced in April 2016. Before then, banks and building societies deducted 20% basic-rate tax from interest at source automatically — savers received their interest net, and only non-taxpayers had to reclaim it or register to be paid gross. The PSA changed two things at once: it removed deduction at source (banks now pay interest gross and simply report it to HMRC), and it made a slice of interest genuinely tax-free for most people.
It is worth being precise about the word "allowance". The PSA is technically a 0% rate band, not a true allowance like the Personal Allowance. Interest covered by the PSA still counts as part of your taxable income — it is just taxed at 0%. That subtlety has real consequences: PSA-covered interest can still be part of the income figure that pushes you toward the higher-rate threshold, that affects Personal Allowance tapering above £100,000, or that feeds into means-tested calculations. So "tax-free up to £1,000" is true for the tax on the interest itself, but the interest is not invisible for every other purpose.
A plain worked comparison: same interest, different outcomes
To see why the band you sit in matters so much, imagine two savers who each receive exactly £900 of taxable savings interest in the year from ordinary (non-ISA) accounts.
| Basic-rate saver | Higher-rate saver | |
|---|---|---|
| PSA available | £1,000 | £500 |
| Interest received | £900 | £900 |
| Interest above the PSA | £0 | £400 |
| Tax rate on the excess | 20% | 40% |
| Tax due on the interest | £0 | £160 |
Identical interest; very different results. The basic-rate saver pays nothing because £900 is inside their £1,000 PSA. The higher-rate saver has only £500 of cover, so £400 is taxed at 40% — a £160 bill. This is also why a single event that nudges someone from basic to higher rate is doubly painful for savers: the PSA halves from £1,000 to £500 and the rate on any excess jumps from 20% to 40%. The page on the 2026/27 PSA numbers works through how rising interest rates and frozen thresholds make that scenario far more common than it used to be.
The practical takeaway from this explainer: the PSA is a per-person 0% band for ordinary savings interest only; ISA interest sidesteps it entirely; dividends have their own separate allowance; and your tax band — not the size of your savings pot alone — decides how much of your interest is sheltered.
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