On this page6 sections
31 May
Deadline for your employer to issue it
3 figures
What you actually need from the form
4 years
How far back a claim can reach
The P60 is the most-filed and least-read document in UK employment. It arrives in May, it looks like a receipt, and it goes in a drawer. It is in fact the single best piece of evidence you have for whether last year's tax was right, because it states in one place what you were paid, what was taken, and under which code.
Here is the three-minute check, with a worked example of a P60 that shows an overpayment.
All figures are estimates on published 2026/27 rest of UK rates. Confirm your own position with HMRC.
- P60
- An end-of-year certificate showing the pay you received and the tax deducted from it in a tax year running 6 April to 5 April. HMRC states you get a separate P60 for each of your jobs, and that you will need it 'to claim back overpaid tax' or as proof of income.
When you get one, and who gets one
HMRC's guidance on P60s is short. "If you're working for an employer on 5 April they must give you a P60. They must provide this by 31 May, on paper or electronically."
Two consequences follow. If you left a job during the year, that employer owes you no P60 at all, because you were not there on 5 April. What you have for that job is your P45, and you will need it for the same check. And if you had two jobs on 5 April, you should have two P60s, one from each.
The three figures that matter
A P60 carries a fair amount of information: your details, your National Insurance number, NI contributions by letter, statutory payments, student loan deductions. For an overpayment check you need three things.
| What to find | Where it sits |
|---|---|
| Total pay for the year | The "total for year" pay figure, including any previous-employment amounts carried in from a P45 |
| Total tax deducted | The matching "total for year" tax figure |
| Your final tax code | Printed on the form, usually near the pay and tax boxes |
The first two are the outcome. The third is the assumption that produced it. When the assumption is wrong, the outcome is wrong by a predictable amount.
Watch the "previous employment" columns. If you changed jobs during the year and handed over a P45, your new employer's P60 should include the earlier pay and tax in the year totals. If it does not, you are looking at a partial picture and the check below will mislead you.
The three-minute check
- Take the total pay figure.
- Work out the tax due under the code you should have been on. For a standard 1257L code in the rest of the UK: subtract £12,570, then charge 20% up to £50,270 of total income, 40% up to £125,140, and 45% above. Scottish taxpayers have a six-band structure, so use our Scottish tax codes guide instead.
- Compare with the total tax deducted. If more was deducted than was due, that difference is your estimated overpayment.
Worked example 1: a P60 showing a large refund.
| P60 line | Figure |
|---|---|
| Total pay for year | £29,400 |
| Total tax deducted | £5,880 |
| Final tax code | BR |
A BR code gives no Personal Allowance and taxes everything at 20%: £29,400 x 20% = £5,880, which matches. But BR belongs on a second job, and this was the only one.
| Correct position on 1257L | Figure |
|---|---|
| Pay | £29,400 |
| Less Personal Allowance | £12,570 |
| Taxable | £16,830 |
| Tax at 20% | £3,366 |
| Estimated overpayment | £2,514 |
£2,514 is £12,570 at 20%, the flat cost of losing the whole allowance at basic rate. It is the same figure at any basic rate salary, which is why it turns up so often in real refunds.
Worked example 2: a quieter one.
| P60 line | Figure |
|---|---|
| Total pay for year | £34,000 |
| Total tax deducted | £4,800 |
| Final tax code | 1000L |
A 1000L code gives £10,000 of tax free pay instead of £12,570, usually because a deduction of £2,570 was sitting in the code: a company car, medical cover, or an estimate of untaxed interest. If that deduction was correct, the tax is correct. If the benefit had ended, it was not.
£2,570 of missing allowance at 20% is £514. Small enough to ignore, large enough to be worth ten minutes, and it recurs every year the deduction stays in place.
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Start freeWhat a P60 cannot tell you
It will not tell you whether your code was right. It only tells you what code was used, which is why step 2 of the check exists.
It will not show a benefit in kind directly. Benefits are reported on a P11D and appear on your P60 only indirectly, as the reduced allowance inside your code.
It covers one employment. If you had two jobs, you need both P60s, and the interesting question is which one carried your Personal Allowance. It should be the higher-paying one.
And it is not a claim. A P60 evidences a claim you then have to make.
What to do with what you find
If the year has already ended and the code looks wrong, use Check your Income Tax for previous years. Compare HMRC's calculation against the P60 figures, and where they disagree, contact HMRC with the tax year, the employer, the amounts on the P60 and what you believe the correct position to be. Specific beats general every time.
If a P800 arrived for that year, the P60 is how you check it. HMRC builds the P800 from figures your employer reported, so a P800 income line that does not match your P60 is the whole ballgame.
If the same problem is still running in the current year, correct the code in your Personal Tax Account and the overpayment comes back through payroll rather than as a claim. See what to do about a wrong tax code.
You can go back four tax years, so 2022/23 is still claimable until 5 April 2027 under the limit set out in HMRC's Self Assessment Claims Manual at TMA 1970 s43. If you have kept four P60s, you have four checks to do, and they take about ten minutes together.
Our free tax code checker does step 2 of the check for you, for any year back to 2022/23, and the full reclaim guide covers the whole recovery.
If you have lost it
HMRC's guidance: "If you've lost your P60, ask your employer for a replacement." If you cannot get one, you can either "use your personal tax account or the HMRC app to find the information that would be on the P60" or "contact HM Revenue and Customs and ask for the information that would be on the P60".
For the check above, the personal tax account route is usually faster than chasing a former employer, and the figures are HMRC's own, which is what you will be arguing about anyway.
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Start freePeople also ask
Can I claim a tax refund with my P60?
The P60 is your evidence rather than the claim itself. HMRC states you will need it "to claim back overpaid tax", because it shows the pay you received, the tax deducted and the tax code used for that year in one place. To turn that into a refund, compare the tax deducted against the tax that would have been due under the correct code, then use HMRC's Check your Income Tax for previous years service for a completed year, or correct your tax code in your Personal Tax Account if the same problem is still running.
How do I know if my P60 shows I overpaid tax?
Take three figures from it: total pay for the year, total tax deducted and the final tax code. Work out the tax that would have been due on that pay under the correct code for your circumstances, which for a standard 1257L code in the rest of the UK means subtracting £12,570 and charging 20% up to £50,270. If more tax was deducted than that calculation produces, the difference is your estimated overpayment. A BR code on your only job is the classic case: it costs £2,514 a year at basic rate, whatever the salary.
When should I receive my P60?
By 31 May. HMRC states that if you are working for an employer on 5 April they must give you a P60, and "they must provide this by 31 May, on paper or electronically". You get a separate P60 for each job you held on 5 April, so two concurrent jobs means two forms. If you left a job during the tax year, that employer does not issue you a P60 at all, because you were not employed there on 5 April; what you have for that job is your P45.
What if I do not have my P60?
HMRC's guidance is to ask your employer for a replacement first. If you cannot get one, you can use your personal tax account or the HMRC app to find the information that would have been on the P60, or contact HMRC and ask for it. For checking a possible overpayment, the personal tax account route is usually quicker than chasing a former employer, and it gives you HMRC's own figures, which are the ones any claim will ultimately be argued against.
Does a P60 show a tax refund?
It can show one that already happened, but it does not tell you whether you are owed one. If your tax code was corrected during the year and your employer refunded you through payroll, the year totals on the P60 already reflect that. What a P60 never does is judge whether the code used was correct in the first place, and that is where nearly all overpayments come from. The P60 gives you the raw figures; comparing them against the correct code is the step that finds the money.