P60, P45 and P11D explained

Employers use a handful of official forms to tell you, and HMRC, about your pay and tax. The three you’re most likely to see are the P60, the P45 and the P11D. They’re worth keeping and checking, because they’re the key records if you need to claim a refund or prove your income. This guide explains each one.

The P60: your end-of-year summary

A P60 summarises your pay and the tax deducted from it for the whole tax year, from 6 April to 5 April. If you’re working for an employer on 5 April, they must give you one by 31 May. It can be on paper or electronic. If you have more than one job, you get a P60 from each. GOV.UK’s page on P45, P60 and P11D forms explains your rights.

Your P60 shows:

• your pay in this job for the tax year, and pay from any previous job in the same year if your employer included it from your P45;
• the income tax deducted;
• your final tax code;
• your National Insurance contributions, broken down by NI category letter;
• student loan deductions, if any;
• statutory payments, such as Statutory Maternity Pay.

For someone on a £36,000 salary all year with the standard code and no pension, the P60 would show pay of £36,000 and income tax of about £4,686, with National Insurance of about £1,874.

Using your P60

You’ll need your P60 to:

• prove your income, for example for a mortgage, loan or tenancy;
• check whether you’ve paid the right amount of tax, and claim a refund if you haven’t;
• fill in a Self Assessment tax return.

What to check on your P60

1. Pay: does it match the year-to-date pay on your final payslip of the year?
2. Tax: does it match the tax year-to-date figure?
3. Tax code: is it the code you expected? A wrong code can mean the wrong tax all year.
4. Pension: if you pay into a net pay pension or salary sacrifice, the pay figure should be after those deductions.

If something looks wrong, ask your employer first. If you’ve paid too much tax, see our guide to claiming a tax refund.

The P45: when you leave a job

Your employer must give you a P45 when you stop working for them. It shows your pay and tax from 6 April to your leaving date, your tax code, and your leaving date.

A paper P45 has three parts:

• Part 1A is your copy. Keep it.
• Parts 2 and 3 go to your new employer, or to Jobcentre Plus if you’re claiming benefits.

Your new employer uses the P45 to carry on your PAYE record with the right tax code and the right pay and tax so far, which avoids an emergency code. If you don’t have a P45, your new employer will ask you to fill in a starter checklist instead, and you may be put on an emergency code for a while. Our guide to emergency tax codes explains what that means.

You can’t get a replacement P45 if you lose one. Your personal tax account and the HMRC app show your pay and tax details for recent years if you need them, including the figures that were on your P45 and P60.

The P11D: benefits in kind

A P11D lists benefits in kind you got from your employer during the tax year, such as a company car, fuel, private medical insurance or a cheap or interest-free loan. Your employer sends it to HMRC after the end of the tax year, and should give you a copy or the same information.

Benefits in kind are taxable. HMRC usually collects the tax by reducing the allowance in your tax code, which can mean a lower code number or a K code. Some employers instead “payroll” benefits, adding the taxable value to your pay each month, in which case they won’t need to send a P11D for those benefits.

When you get your P11D:

• check each benefit is right and the values match what you received;
• make sure your tax code reflects the benefits, using HMRC’s online service to check;
• if a benefit has stopped, tell HMRC so your code can be updated.

Our guide to tax codes explains how benefits change your code.

Other forms you might see

• P800: a tax calculation letter from HMRC if you’ve paid too much or too little tax in a year. See claiming a tax refund.
• P2: a coding notice from HMRC explaining a new tax code.
• Starter checklist: the form you fill in for a new employer if you don’t have a P45, which replaced the old P46.

Keeping your records

Keep your P60s and P45s for at least a few years, along with your payslips. They’re the evidence you’ll need if your tax is ever queried. If you’ve lost a P60, ask your employer for a copy, or check the figures in your personal tax account on GOV.UK. Our guide to reading your payslip explains how the monthly figures build up to the totals on your P60.

To check the figures on your P60 against what you should have paid, enter your salary and tax code in our take-home pay calculator. If you had two jobs, the two jobs tax calculator shows the expected tax for each. To work out the salary needed for a target take-home figure, use the reverse salary calculator.