What Is a P60? Where to Find Yours and What Each Box Means

A P60 is the end-of-year certificate your employer must give you if you were still on their payroll on 5 April. It shows your total taxable pay for the tax year, the Income Tax deducted under PAYE, your National Insurance contributions, your final tax code and any student loan deductions — all in one place. You should have it by 31 May after the tax year ends, so your P60 for 2026/27 is due by 31 May 2027.

• You get a P60 for every job you were still in on 5 April — two jobs on that date means two P60s.
• A P60 covers a whole tax year; a P45 covers one job you have left part-way through a year.
• The most useful boxes are "Total for year" pay and tax, plus your final tax code — those three numbers are enough to check whether you overpaid.
• HMRC cannot issue a P60, but your employer can give you a duplicate and your Personal Tax Account shows the same pay and tax figures.
• Self-employment income never appears on a P60. There is no P60 for sole traders.

What a P60 is for

The P60 is a statement of fact: this is what we paid you, and this is what we took off. Employers report the same figures to HMRC through Real Time Information every payday, so the P60 is really your copy of the year-end position.

In practice people need it for four things:

• Checking PAYE. If too much tax came out, the P60 is the evidence you use to claim it back.
• Self Assessment. The employment pages of a tax return ask for pay and tax deducted — both come straight off the P60.
• Proof of income. Mortgage lenders, letting agents, visa applications and benefit claims routinely ask for the last one or two P60s.
• Claiming reliefs. Work expenses, higher-rate pension relief and Marriage Allowance all depend on how much you earned and what rate of tax you paid.

Your employer can give you the P60 on paper or electronically through a payslip portal. An electronic P60 is just as valid.

What each box on a P60 means

The layout varies slightly between payroll systems, but the boxes are standardised because HMRC specifies them. Here is what each one is telling you.

Two things the pay figure is not

The "pay" box is taxable pay, not gross salary. Salary sacrifice arrangements and workplace pension contributions taken under a net pay arrangement have already been stripped out, so the figure can look lower than your contract says. Payrolled benefits in kind, by contrast, are added in. Personal pension contributions paid from your bank account under relief at source are not reflected at all — those are claimed separately.

P60 vs P45: the difference in one table

If you left a job in, say, January 2027 and did not work again before April, you will get a P45 from that employer and no P60 for 2026/27 at all. That is a common reason for refunds going unclaimed, because PAYE assumed you would keep earning for the rest of the year. There is more detail in our guide to what a P45 is and what to do with each part.

When you get your P60

The legal deadline is 31 May following the end of the tax year. Most employers issue them in April or early May once the final Full Payment Submission for the year has gone to HMRC. If 31 May passes and nothing has arrived, chase payroll first — it is usually a portal you have not logged into rather than a missing document.

Lost your P60? How to get a copy

HMRC does not issue P60s and cannot send you a replacement. You have three routes:

1. Ask your employer or ex-employer for a duplicate. They can reproduce one from payroll records. Employers are required to keep PAYE records for at least three years after the end of the tax year.
2. Use your Personal Tax Account. Sign in at GOV.UK Personal Tax Account and open your income record. It shows pay and tax by employer for the current and earlier tax years, and you can print or save the page — that is what most people mean when they search for how to download a P60. It is not a P60 document, but it carries the same figures.
3. Request an employment history or statement of earnings. HMRC can provide a written record of your employments and earnings, which lenders and tribunals usually accept in place of a lost P60.

Your final payslip of the tax year is also a good stand-in: the year-to-date columns should match the P60 exactly.

Do the self-employed get a P60?

No. A P60 comes from an employer operating PAYE, and a sole trader has no employer. If you are self-employed, your equivalent record is your Self Assessment tax return and the SA302 tax calculation HMRC produces from it.

Two situations catch people out. First, if you are both employed and self-employed, you get a P60 for the employment only — your trading profits sit outside it entirely and are taxed through Self Assessment, with Class 4 National Insurance at 6% on profits between £12,570 and £50,270 and 2% above. Second, a director of your own limited company is an employee of that company, so if the company runs a payroll and you were on it on 5 April, you should produce a P60 for yourself.

Use your P60 to check for a refund

This is the part most people skip. Take three figures from the P60 — total pay for the year, total tax for the year, and your final tax code — and rebuild the calculation.

Worked example: England, Wales or Northern Ireland

Priya changed jobs in August 2026 and was put on an emergency month 1 code for three months. Her P60 for 2026/27 shows total pay of £38,000 and total tax of £6,200, with a final code of 1257L.

• Personal Allowance: £12,570
• Taxable income: £38,000 − £12,570 = £25,430
• That is inside the £37,700 basic-rate band, so tax due is £25,430 × 20% = £5,086
• Tax deducted: £6,200. Overpayment: £6,200 − £5,086 = £1,114

As a cross-check on National Insurance: £38,000 − £12,570 = £25,430 × 8% = £2,034.40. Bear in mind NI is worked out pay period by pay period and is not recalculated across the year, so a small difference here is normal and is not usually refundable.

The same figures in Scotland

Scottish rates apply to non-savings income, and the code would start with S. On £25,430 of taxable income: 19% on the first £3,967 (£753.73), 20% on the next £12,989 up to £16,956 (£2,597.80), then 21% on the remaining £8,474 (£1,779.54). Total £5,131.07 — about £45 more than the rest of the UK, and the overpayment would be £1,068.93 instead of £1,114.

Why overpayments happen

• An emergency, week 1/month 1, BR or 0T code after starting a job without handing over a P45
• Leaving employment part-way through the year and not working again
• Two jobs where the allowance was split badly, or duplicated
• A company car or medical cover in your code after the benefit ended
• Work expenses, uniform flat rates or higher-rate pension relief never claimed

HMRC reconciles PAYE records after the year end and sends a P800 calculation or a Simple Assessment where something is out, usually from the summer onwards. It is not guaranteed to catch everything, particularly unclaimed reliefs, and you can go back four years from the end of the tax year to claim. See GOV.UK on tax overpayments and underpayments for how refunds are paid.

What to do next

Dig out your P60, or the year-to-date figures from your final payslip, and run the numbers. Our P60 end-of-year tax calculator takes the pay, tax and tax code straight from the certificate and tells you whether you have overpaid or underpaid for the year. If you want to model a different income level, or check the effect of a pension contribution or a change of region, use the Income Tax calculator.