The thresholds GOV.UK publishes
GOV.UK's repayment page for the year from 6 April 2026 sets four undergraduate thresholds and one postgraduate threshold. Plan 1 is £26,900 a year, £2,241.66 a month, or £517.30 a week. Plan 2 is £29,385, £2,448.75 a month, or £565.09 a week. Plan 4, which is the Scottish plan, is £33,795, £2,816.25 a month, or £649.90 a week. Plan 5 is £25,000, £2,083.33 a month, or £480.76 a week. A postgraduate loan is £21,000, £1,750 a month, or £403.84 a week, and it is repaid at 6 percent rather than 9.
Employers are told to use the same gross pay that they use for employer Class 1 National Insurance, and to round the deduction down to the nearest pound. The calculator does that. It divides the annual salary by 12 or by 52, subtracts the period threshold, multiplies the excess by 9 percent or by 6 percent, and floors the result to a whole pound. The yearly figure is that pound times the number of periods. It is not 9 percent of the amount by which the annual salary exceeds the annual threshold, which can be a few pounds different.
The same salary under each plan
A salary of £28,000 a month is the official Plan 5 example on the terms and conditions page. Monthly pay is £2,333.33. Plan 5's monthly threshold is £2,083.33, so the excess is £250. Nine percent of that is £22.50, which payroll rounds down to £22. Plan 2's monthly threshold is £2,448.75, which is above £2,333.33, so the Plan 2 deduction is nothing. The annual thresholds would have suggested the same direction: £28,000 is over £25,000 and under £29,385. The period test is what the payslip uses.
A salary of £30,000 shows both plans taking something, at different amounts. Monthly pay is £2,500. Plan 2's excess is £51.25, and 9 percent of that is £4.61, which floors to £4 a month and £48 a year. Plan 5's excess is £416.67, and 9 percent of that is £37.50, which floors to £37 a month and £444 a year. The gap is the threshold, not the rate. Both plans are 9 percent. Plan 5 simply starts £4,385 lower.
Plan 1 on £30,000 is the other official-style check stored with the calculator: the monthly deduction floors to £23, and the year is £276. Plan 4's threshold is higher than Plan 2, so a salary that has just started Plan 2 may still be under Plan 4. The calculator lets you pick one undergraduate plan. It does not add Plan 2 and Plan 5 together.
Two loans, a postgraduate loan, and a bonus
GOV.UK says that if you have more than one undergraduate plan you do not repay 9 percent twice. The employer applies the plan with the rules that the Student Loans Company has told them to use. This form follows that limit: one undergraduate plan. A postgraduate loan is different. It is added at 6 percent of pay over its own threshold, and it can sit on top of Plan 2 or Plan 5. The undergraduate deduction does not change when the postgraduate box is ticked. The total is the sum.
A bonus can push one month over the period threshold even when the year's pay stays under the annual threshold. Payroll will deduct in that month. The borrower can ask for a refund if the year ends below the annual threshold. The calculator shows the steady-salary case, the same pay every period. It does not model a bonus month, overseas thresholds, or the interest rate. Those are in the loan terms and they are not a payslip percentage.
Self-employed repayments are collected through Self Assessment rather than payroll. The thresholds are the same annual figures, but the timing is the tax return. This guide and the calculator are the payroll shape. Take-home pay on the linked calculator can include the same deduction, so the loan line there matches this one when the plan and the frequency match.
What this comparison leaves alone
Which plan you are on is a fact about when and where you studied, not a choice on the payslip. Plan 5 is the plan for the later English undergraduate loans. Plan 2 is the earlier English plan. Plan 4 is Scotland. Plan 1 is the older plan. This page does not tell you which one the Student Loans Company holds. It tells you what each threshold does to the same salary from 6 April 2026.
The write-off date, the interest, and the balance are why people compare the plans in the long run. A lower threshold means Plan 5 repayments start sooner and, on a given salary, are larger. That is the payslip fact. It is not a forecast of which plan costs more over decades, because that forecast needs the interest rules and the write-off rules, and those are not stored in the config. Use the calculator for the deduction. Use the loan statement for the balance.
A weekly paid salary uses the weekly thresholds rather than the monthly ones divided by hand. Plan 2's weekly threshold is £565.09 and Plan 5's is £480.76. The same flooring rule applies: excess times 9 percent, then down to a whole pound, then times 52 for the year. Switching the calculator from monthly to weekly will move the pound amount, because GOV.UK's weekly figures are not a perfect twelfth of the monthly ones. That is the same reason take-home National Insurance changes with frequency. If the employer pays every four weeks, this form does not have a four-week threshold. The employer guidance is the place for that pay period. Overseas income thresholds are also absent. A borrower who is abroad does not use these UK payroll bands, and typing a UK salary into the form will not describe that case. The comparison this page is willing to stand behind is the UK payroll comparison from 6 April 2026: same 9 percent, Plan 5 threshold £4,385 lower than Plan 2, postgraduate loan extra at 6 percent over £21,000, and no second 9 percent for a second undergraduate plan.