Bonus tax calculator 2026/27
- See exactly how much of your bonus you keep
- Income tax and National Insurance on the extra
- Handles the jump into the 40% band
- 2026/27 rates for England, Wales and Northern Ireland
You take home from your bonus
£3,600
You keep 72.0% of your £5,000 bonus.
| Bonus | £5,000 |
| Income tax on bonus | −£1,000 |
| National Insurance on bonus | −£400 |
| Bonus take-home | £3,600 |
Shows the extra tax and NI caused by the bonus, at your marginal rate. Assumes no pension or student loan on the bonus. Figures use HMRC 2026/27 rates. Source: gov.uk
A bonus isn't taxed at some special rate. It's added to your pay and taxed at your marginal rate, the rate on your next pound of income. If you're a basic-rate taxpayer, that's 20% income tax plus 8% National Insurance, so you keep 72p of every extra pound. On a £5,000 bonus that's £3,600 in your pocket.
Cross into the higher-rate band and it changes. Above £50,270 the rate is 40% tax and NI drops to 2%, so you keep 58p in the pound. A bonus that straddles the threshold is taxed partly at each rate, which is why the calculator works out the exact split rather than applying one flat rate.
If your bonus lands in one month, PAYE can briefly over-tax it. The system assumes you'll earn at that inflated monthly rate for the whole year and taxes accordingly, so a big one-off payment can look brutally taxed on the payslip. It corrects itself: over the following months, or through your tax code, you get the overpayment back. The annual figure this calculator shows is what you actually keep once the year settles.
If a bonus pushes your income over £100,000, you start losing your personal allowance at £1 for every £2 above, which creates an effective 60% rate on that slice. The clean way to sidestep heavy bonus tax is to sacrifice the bonus into your pension. You pay no income tax or NI on it, and it goes in gross. That's worth serious thought if the bonus would otherwise be taxed at 40% or trigger the allowance taper. To see the effect on your whole salary, use the main salary calculator.