Student Loan Refund: How to Check If You've Overpaid and Claim

If your employer has deducted student loan repayments when you did not owe them, you can ask the Student Loans Company (SLC) to refund the money — and in most cases there is no deadline for doing so. The most common causes are repayments starting before your loan became due, annual earnings ending up below the repayment threshold, being put on the wrong plan type, and deductions continuing after the loan was cleared.

A refund is paid straight into your bank account. It is not a tax refund, so it does not come from HMRC and it has no effect on your income tax or National Insurance.

Key points

• Student loan deductions through PAYE are worked out pay period by pay period, not across the year — so a bonus or a busy month can trigger repayments even if your annual income is below the threshold.
• Repayments are only due from the 6 April after you finish or leave your course. Anything deducted before that date is refundable.
• Refunds are claimed from the Student Loans Company, not HMRC, and the refunded amount goes back onto your loan balance.
• Overpayments after the loan is fully repaid are common because PAYE data can take months to catch up.
• You can sanity-check your own position with the student loan refund checker before you ring anyone.

Why student loan overpayments happen

Repayments started too early

You do not start repaying on the day you graduate. Repayments are due from the 6 April after you finish, leave or withdraw from your course. If you walked into a job in the September after finals and your employer started deducting straight away, every pound taken before the following 6 April is refundable in full.

This happens most often when a new starter ticks the student loan box on the starter checklist without noticing the date question, or when a payroll team applies deductions as a default.

Your annual income ended up below the threshold

This is the single biggest cause of overpayments. PAYE student loan deductions are non-cumulative: payroll looks at each pay packet in isolation and takes 9% (6% for a Postgraduate Loan) of anything above the monthly or weekly equivalent of the threshold. It does not look back at what you have earned so far in the year.

So if you are paid a bonus, work overtime, get a one-off commission payment, have irregular shifts, or only work part of the tax year, you can have deductions taken in some months while your total income for the year still lands under the annual threshold. In that case the whole year's deductions can be refunded.

Thresholds are reviewed every April. The figures above are the ones that applied in 2025/26. If you hold both an undergraduate plan and a Postgraduate Loan, both deductions run at the same time.

Worked example: the bonus month

Sam is on Plan 2 with a monthly threshold of £2,372.50 (£28,470 ÷ 12). Sam's normal monthly pay is £2,200, which is under the monthly threshold, so no deduction is taken. In December Sam is paid £4,000 including a bonus.

• Pay above the monthly threshold in December: £4,000 − £2,372.50 = £1,627.50
• Deduction at 9%: £1,627.50 × 0.09 = £146 (rounded down to the pound)
• Total pay for the year: (11 × £2,200) + £4,000 = £28,200

£28,200 is below the £28,470 annual threshold, so Sam owed nothing for the year and the full £146 can be reclaimed.

You were put on the wrong plan

Being deducted on Plan 1 when you are really on Plan 2 costs real money, because Plan 1's threshold is lower. On a £34,000 salary:

• Correct Plan 2: (£34,000 − £28,470) × 9% = £497.70 a year
• Wrong Plan 1: (£34,000 − £26,065) × 9% = £714.15 a year
• Overpaid: £216.45 a year

Left unnoticed across three jobs and five years, that becomes a meaningful sum. The same applies in reverse if deductions are taken when you have no loan at all, or when your loan has already been written off because of age or the time limit for your plan.

Two payroll records, or PAYE plus Self Assessment

If you have two jobs, each employer applies the monthly threshold separately — that is correct under the rules, but it can mean you repay more across the year than a single employer would have taken. And if you complete a Self Assessment return alongside PAYE work, the return can calculate a repayment on top of what payroll already collected if the PAYE deductions are not entered correctly.

Checking your balance and repayment record

Start with the official record. You can sign in to your student loan repayment account on GOV.UK to see your balance, your plan type and the repayments the SLC has recorded against it.

Three things to know before you panic about the numbers:

1. PAYE deductions reach the SLC late. Your employer sends the money to HMRC with your tax and National Insurance, and it can be many months before it appears on your SLC account. Your payslips are the more up-to-date record.
2. Your payslips are the evidence. Look for a "Student Loan" line. Add up the deductions for each tax year (6 April to 5 April) and compare the total pay on your P60 with the annual threshold for your plan.
3. Check the plan on the payslip matches reality. Your plan depends on where you studied and when your course started, not on what your employer guessed.

If you would rather not trawl through five years of payslips first, run your figures through the student loan refund checker to see which years look worth investigating.

How to claim a student loan refund

Refunds come from the Student Loans Company, not HMRC. The steps are the same for all plan types:

1. Work out the years and amounts. For each tax year, note your total pay, your plan type, and the total student loan deducted.
2. Gather evidence. P60s are ideal. Payslips work too. For an "started too early" claim, you also want the date your course ended.
3. Contact the SLC repayments team. You can request a refund by phone, and some refund requests can be started from your online repayment account. The SLC repayments helpline number is published on the GOV.UK repaying your student loan pages.
4. Give your bank details and confirm your identity. Refunds are paid by bank transfer, usually within a few weeks.
5. Fix the cause. A refund does not stop the deductions. If the plan type is wrong, or deductions should not be running at all, tell your payroll team so the next payslip is correct.

Two things worth knowing. First, there is generally no time limit on reclaiming a student loan overpayment — unlike income tax, which has a four-year window. Second, when money is refunded it goes back onto your loan balance and interest starts running on it again, so a refund is a cash-flow decision rather than free money.

Refunds after your final payment

Overpaying at the very end of a loan is almost built into the system. Your employer keeps deducting 9% every month until HMRC tells them to stop, and HMRC only knows to do that once the SLC has processed enough data to see the balance is clear. The lag can easily run to several months of unnecessary deductions.

The SLC's usual approach is to write to borrowers who are getting close to clearing the balance and offer a Direct Debit for the final stretch, so the exact remaining amount is taken and payroll deductions stop. Keeping your address, email and phone number current on your repayment account is what makes that letter arrive.

If you missed it and kept paying past zero, the SLC should refund the excess — sometimes automatically if it holds your bank details, but often only when you ask. Check your online balance a few months after your last expected payment, and again after the end of the tax year, because that is when the final PAYE figures land.

What to do next

Dig out your P60s, work out your total pay and total student loan deductions for each tax year, then compare them against the threshold for your plan. If any year looks like an overpayment — or if deductions started before the 6 April after your course ended — put the numbers into the student loan refund checker and it will show you where a claim is likely, so you can call the SLC with the figures already in front of you.