Student Loan Calculator
See how your student loan will be repaid, and what it means for your pay at each stage of your career.
Your course
We assume you start in September 2027.
The most you can borrow in 2026/27 is £9,790.
The most you can borrow in 2026/27 is £9,118 living with your parents, £10,830 living away from home outside London, or £14,135 in London. What you can get depends on your household income.
Include any placement or foundation year.
Assumptions
This calculator covers Plan 5 loans only. Plan 5 is for undergraduate students from England starting a course on or after 1 August 2023.
It doesn't cover other repayment plans, students from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, or postgraduate loans.
We assume pay rises with inflation, so each salary stays the same in today's money until you change job.
The government plans to raise the threshold with RPI each April from 2027. Tick this to see what happens if a future government stops raising it.
Plan 5 rules (2026/27)
- You repay 9% of your income over £25,000 a year.
- Interest is charged at RPI, while you study and after.
- Repayments start the April after you leave your course. On a 3-year course that's April 2031.
- Anything left is written off 40 years after your first repayment is due.
Amount owed by age
How student loans work
- You only repay when you earn over the threshold. If you earn less than £25,000 a year, or aren't working, you repay nothing.
- Repayments come straight out of your pay, like tax. Your employer takes them through your payslip, so you don't have to arrange them.
- What you repay depends on what you earn, not what you owe. Two people earning the same pay the same each month, however much they borrowed.
- The balance is written off after 40 years. If you haven't repaid it all by then, the rest is cancelled.
- Interest is charged at RPI. That means the amount you owe keeps up with inflation. In actual pounds the balance can keep rising for years, but in today's money it stays roughly the same until your repayments start to bring it down.
- If you pay it all off, earning more mostly changes how soon. Because interest only keeps up with inflation, anyone who clears their loan repays about the same in today's money. Higher earners just finish sooner. People who don't clear it before it's written off repay less.
- Today's money vs actual pounds. Prices rise over time, so £100 in 30 years buys less than £100 does now. "Today's money" shows future amounts in 2026/27 prices, so you can compare them with prices you know. "Actual pounds" shows what will actually leave your pay in each year.
Your pay at every salary
What you'd repay, pay in tax and National Insurance, and take home each month on yearly salaries up to £150,000, at 2026/27 rates for England.
- Below £12,570 you pay no tax or National Insurance, and below £25,000 you repay nothing.
- Between £100,000 and £125,140 you lose £1 of your tax-free allowance for every £2 you earn, so take home pay rises slowly there.
- It leaves out pensions, tax codes and Scottish income tax.
Showing today's money
Today's money shows every future amount in 2026/27 prices, so you can compare it with prices you know now.
Plan 5 interest is the same as inflation (RPI). With RPI at , the amount you owe goes up by a year in actual pounds. But prices go up by too, so what you owe is worth the same.
So once you've finished borrowing, the value of your loan either stays the same or goes down as you pay it off.
That's also why anyone who pays off their loan repays about the same in today's money. Higher earners pay fewer actual pounds because they pay sooner, before prices have risen as much.