The tax code 1257L means your tax-free Personal Allowance is £12,570 for 2026/27. You get that figure by multiplying the code's number by 10, and the L means you get the standard allowance. It's the normal code for most people with one job and nothing unusual going on. Any other number means HMRC has adjusted your allowance up or down, and the letter tells your employer which rules to apply.
Your tax code is that little string of numbers and letters on your payslip. Most people glance at it once, assume it's fine, and never think about it again. But it directly controls how much tax comes out of your wages each month. If it's wrong, you could be overpaying, or underpaying, which is worse because HMRC will eventually want the money back. Here's how to read yours.
Every standard tax code has two parts: a number and a letter (or letters). The number represents your tax-free allowance. Multiply it by 10 to get the actual figure.
So 1257L means: your tax-free allowance is £12,570. Which is the standard Personal Allowance for 2026/27.
If your code is 1185L, your allowance is £11,850. That's lower than standard, which means HMRC has reduced your allowance for some reason. Maybe a company car benefit, or underpaid tax from last year being collected.
This works for any number you see. A code of 1246L means £12,460 tax-free. 1263L means £12,630. 879L means £8,790. 660L means £6,600. If your number is lower than 1257, HMRC has trimmed your allowance to claw back a benefit or an earlier underpayment. If it's higher, you've got extra allowance from something like job expenses or Marriage Allowance.
Here's a quick reference for codes people look up most often:
| Tax code | Tax-free allowance | What it usually signals |
|---|---|---|
| 1257L | £12,570 | Standard allowance, one job, nothing unusual |
| 1263L | £12,630 | Slightly above standard, often small job expenses |
| 1246L | £12,460 | Allowance trimmed by a small benefit or adjustment |
| 1185L | £11,850 | Reduced allowance, e.g. company car or underpaid tax |
| 879L | £8,790 | Larger reduction from a taxable benefit |
| 1382M | £13,820 | Received Marriage Allowance from a partner |
| 1131N | £11,310 | Gave 10% of your allowance to a partner |
| 260T | £2,600 | Reduced allowance HMRC wants to review (T suffix) |
| BR | None | All pay taxed at 20%, usually a second job |
| K497 | Adds £4,970 to taxable pay | Benefits exceed your allowance |
| S1257L | £12,570 | Standard allowance, Scottish rates apply |
The letter tells your employer which tax rules to apply. Here are the ones you'll actually see:
L means you're entitled to the standard Personal Allowance. This is the most common code. If you've got 1257L, everything is normal.
M means you've received a transfer of 10% of your partner's Personal Allowance through Marriage Allowance. Your code might be 1382M, giving you £13,820 tax-free (£12,570 + £1,260 transferred).
N means you've transferred 10% of your allowance to your partner. Your code would be 1131N, giving you £11,310 tax-free.
T means HMRC needs to review your code. It works the same as L but signals that something unusual is going on with your tax affairs. You don't need to do anything differently.
BR means all income from this job is taxed at the basic rate (20%). You'll see this on a second job where your allowance is already used up by your first job. No number, just the letters.
D0 means all income from this job is taxed at the higher rate (40%). Again, typically a second job for someone already earning above £50,270 in their main employment.
D1 means all income is taxed at the additional rate (45%). Rare, but you'd see it on a third income source for very high earners.
A K code is the opposite of a normal code. Instead of giving you a tax-free allowance, it adds to your taxable income. This happens when the value of your taxable benefits (company car, medical insurance, underpaid tax) exceeds your Personal Allowance.
For example, K497 means HMRC is adding £4,970 to your taxable income. If you earn £30,000 and have a K497 code, you're taxed as if you earned £34,970. You can see the normal take-home on that salary on our £30,000 after tax page and compare it against what a K code does to your monthly pay.
K codes often appear when someone has a company car worth, say, £8,000 in benefit-in-kind, plus private medical insurance worth £2,000. That's £10,000 in benefits. HMRC reduces your £12,570 allowance by £10,000, leaving £2,570. But if you also have underpaid tax of £3,000 being collected, that pushes you below zero, and you get a K code.
The key rule with K codes: your employer can never deduct more than 50% of your pay through a K code in any pay period. That's a legal cap.
If you see W1 (week 1) or M1 (month 1) at the end of your code, you're on an emergency basis. Something like 1257L M1 or 1257L W1.
Emergency codes mean your employer is calculating tax on each pay period in isolation, without looking at your cumulative earnings for the year. Normally, PAYE is cumulative, meaning if you overpay in one month, the next month corrects it. Emergency codes break that cumulative link.
You'll get an emergency code when:
Emergency codes aren't necessarily wrong. You get the standard allowance (1257L), just calculated differently. But if you're on a higher code like BR M1, you could be overpaying. Usually HMRC sorts it within a few weeks and issues a proper code. If it's been more than 6 weeks, ring them.
If you live in Scotland, your tax code starts with S. So instead of 1257L, you'll have S1257L. This tells your employer to apply Scottish Income Tax rates (which have six bands instead of England's three). Your Personal Allowance is still the same, and the code works identically apart from the rates applied.
Wales has a C prefix (C1257L), though Welsh rates are currently the same as England's.
Common signs your code might be wrong:
The quickest way to decode your own code is our tax code checker: type it in and it shows your tax-free allowance and what the letters mean. Then check what HMRC holds on your Personal Tax Account at gov.uk/personal-tax-account. It shows what HMRC thinks your income and benefits are. If anything's wrong, you can update it online, and HMRC will issue a new code to your employer.
If you're not sure whether your deductions look right, our salary calculator shows the tax and National Insurance you should be paying on your salary with a standard 1257L code. If your payslip differs by a lot, that's a sign your code needs checking.
You can also call HMRC on 0300 200 3300. Wait times vary wildly. Early morning or late afternoon tends to be shortest.
If you've been on the wrong code for a while, you might be owed a refund. HMRC will either adjust your code for the rest of the year to give you extra allowance, or send you a cheque/BACS payment. If you've underpaid, they'll usually collect it by reducing next year's code rather than demanding a lump sum, unless the amount is very large.
Marriage Allowance lets one partner (who earns under £12,570) transfer £1,260 of their allowance to the other partner (who must be a basic-rate taxpayer). The receiving partner's code goes up to 1382M. The transferring partner's code drops to 1131N.
This saves the couple £252 per year. Not life-changing, but it's free money. You can backdate the claim by 4 years too, so if you've been eligible since 2022/23, you could get a lump-sum refund of up to £1,008.
You apply on gov.uk/marriage-allowance. HMRC updates both tax codes automatically once approved.
If you have two jobs, your Personal Allowance is usually applied to your main job (the one that pays more). Your second job gets a BR code, meaning everything is taxed at 20% with no allowance.
You can split your allowance between jobs if you want. Ring HMRC and tell them you'd like, say, £8,000 applied to job one and £4,570 to job two. They'll issue appropriate codes for each employer. This is useful if both jobs pay roughly the same, so you avoid big tax bills at the end of the year.
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