HMRC Tax Refund: How to Check, Claim and How Long It Takes

Some HMRC tax refunds are automatic and some are not. If you overpaid PAYE tax because of a wrong tax code or a mid-year job change, HMRC usually spots it after the tax year ends and sends a P800 calculation, and once you claim online the money normally reaches your bank in about five working days. If the overpayment comes from something HMRC cannot see — work expenses, higher-rate pension relief, Marriage Allowance, a stopped job mid-year — nothing happens until you claim, and you have four years to do it.

• Automatic: PAYE reconciliation after 5 April, shown on a P800 or Simple Assessment.
• Not automatic: expenses, uniform and mileage relief, higher-rate pension and Gift Aid relief, Marriage Allowance, refunds after you stop work.
• Speed: online P800 claims are the fastest; postal and paper claims are the slowest.
• Deadline: four years from the end of the tax year — so 2022/23 claims run out on 5 April 2027.
• Cost: claiming direct through HMRC is free; refund agents typically keep a large slice of the money.

Does HMRC refund automatically?

Partly. After each tax year ends on 5 April, HMRC matches the pay and tax reported by employers and pension providers against the tax you actually owed for the year. If you paid too much, it issues a P800 tax calculation (or a Simple Assessment if you owe tax). These are typically sent out between June and the end of November following the tax year.

So the classic PAYE overpayments do tend to correct themselves eventually:

• You were on an emergency or incorrect code such as BR, 0T, or a week 1/month 1 code.
• You changed jobs and your new employer taxed you without a P45.
• You had two jobs and your Personal Allowance was in the wrong place.
• Your employer used the wrong code after a payroll change.

Even then, "automatic" only means the calculation is automatic. You normally still have to tell HMRC where to send the money by claiming through your Personal Tax Account or the HMRC app.

What HMRC will never refund on its own

HMRC has no idea what you spent on work, what you paid into a personal pension, or what you gave to charity. None of the following appears in a P800 unless you claim:

• Employment expenses — uniform cleaning and flat-rate expenses (for example £125 a year for nurses, £60 for the general uniform rate), tools, subscriptions and business mileage in your own car.
• Higher-rate pension relief — a personal pension adds 20% automatically; the extra 20% or 25% for higher and additional-rate taxpayers has to be claimed.
• Gift Aid higher-rate relief on donations.
• Marriage Allowance, worth £252 a year, and backdatable.
• Stopping work part-way through a tax year, where PAYE has taxed you as though your earnings would continue.
• Overpaid tax on a flexible pension lump sum, which is usually taxed at emergency rates first.
• Self Assessment overpayments — these sit as a credit on your account until you request repayment.

Check if HMRC owes you

Start with the three documents that give the game away: your P60 (or P45), your payslips, and your current tax code. If the code on your latest payslip is not 1257L and you only have one job with no taxable benefits, that is worth investigating. Our check if HMRC owes you money walkthrough covers the signs in order, and the tax refund checker estimates the amount in a couple of minutes.

Worked example: leaving a job mid-year

Sam earns £2,500 a month and stops work at the end of September, six months into the tax year, with no other income for the rest of the year.

1. PAYE gives 1/12th of the £12,570 Personal Allowance each month: £1,047.50 tax-free, leaving £1,452.50 taxable.
2. Tax at 20% = £290.50 a month. Over six months Sam pays £1,743.
3. Actual income for the year is £15,000. Tax due is (£15,000 − £12,570) × 20% = £486.
4. Overpaid: £1,743 − £486 = £1,257.

National Insurance is not refundable in the same way — Class 1 NI is worked out pay period by pay period, not cumulatively across the year, so Sam keeps no refund on the 8% NI already deducted.

Scottish taxpayers run the same sums with Scottish rates on non-savings income. On £15,000 of earnings the taxable £2,430 falls in the 19% starter rate, giving tax of £461.70 and a slightly larger refund. Savings interest and dividends still use UK-wide rates wherever you live.

Worked example: unclaimed expenses

A higher-rate taxpayer pays £40 a month for a professional subscription (£480 a year) and claims the £6 a week working-from-home allowance (£312 a year). Total relief claimed: £792 × 40% = £316.80 back for the year, and the claim can be backdated up to four years. A basic-rate taxpayer with the same costs gets £158.40.

Claim: online, app, P87, P50

The right route depends on why you are owed. Using the wrong one is the main reason refunds take months.

For expense claims, HMRC now asks for supporting evidence up front on many claims, so gather receipts, mileage logs and your employer's reimbursement details before you start. The expenses refund check tells you which costs qualify and what a claim is likely to be worth, and the work expense tax rebate calculator does the arithmetic.

The official starting points are claim a tax refund on GOV.UK and the P87 employment expenses guidance.

How long it takes

Timings vary a lot by route. Treat these as typical rather than guaranteed — HMRC runs security checks on repayments and any claim it wants to look at more closely will take longer.

Two practical points. First, a refund for the tax year that has just ended cannot be processed until HMRC has all the year-end payroll data, so April and May claims often wait. Second, if you are still working and the overpayment relates to the current year, HMRC frequently fixes it by changing your tax code instead of paying cash — you get the money back through a lower deduction in your next payslips.

Agents vs claiming free

Every claim described here can be made directly to HMRC at no cost. Refund agents charge a percentage of whatever they recover, often a third or more once their fee and VAT are added, and that fee applies to the whole refund — including any part HMRC would have paid you automatically through a P800.

If you do use an agent, check two things. It must be a nomination rather than an assignment of your repayment, so you can withdraw it and be paid directly. And read what you are signing: some sign-up forms authorise an agent to act on all your tax affairs, for past and future years, which is far wider than a single expenses claim.

HMRC will also write to you at your own address to confirm a claim made in your name. If a letter arrives about a refund claim you did not make, contact HMRC before anything is paid out.

Watch for scams

HMRC does not text, email or message you on social media offering a refund, and it never asks for card details to release one. Genuine refund notices arrive as a P800 by post or appear inside your Personal Tax Account.

What to do next

Work out the number before you fill in any form. Run the tax refund checker for an estimate across the years still open to you, use the HMRC owes you money check to pin down the cause, then go through the expenses refund check if work costs are part of the picture. If a pension contribution is involved, the pension tax relief calculator shows the extra relief a higher-rate taxpayer can reclaim.