Pension Tax-Free Lump Sum: How the 25% Rule Works (2026/27)
You can normally take 25% of your pension as a tax-free lump sum, capped at £268,275. Here is exactly how the rule works…
This net worth calculator gives you one honest number: everything you own minus everything you owe. It is the single best measure of where you actually stand financially, far more telling than your salary or what is sitting in your current account this week. Enter your assets and your debts above and you will see your net worth in seconds.
It works for anyone in the UK - whether you are clearing a student loan, saving a house deposit, building a pension, or checking you are on track for retirement. Run it every few months and you will see real progress, not guesswork.
Enter what you own and what you owe. Totals update instantly.
Growth is applied to your savings & investments and property each year. Extra savings are added monthly; the debt repayment reduces liabilities until they reach zero.
Your net worth
Asset mix
Projected in years
net worth
growth
Estimate only. Projections assume steady growth and contributions.
| Year | Assets | Liabilities | Net worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scenario | Assets | Liabilities | Net worth | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Pop your figures into the tool above and it does the sums for you. List what you own (assets) and what you owe (liabilities), and it returns your net worth plus a simple breakdown. The more honest and complete your inputs, the more useful the result - round-number guesses give you a round-number answer.
The formula could not be simpler:
Net worth = total assets − total liabilities
Assets are everything you own that has a cash value. Liabilities are everything you owe. Subtract one from the other and you have your net worth. It can be positive (you own more than you owe) or negative (you owe more than you own) - and a negative figure in your twenties or thirties is completely normal if you are carrying a mortgage or student debt.
When you add up your assets, include:
When you add up your liabilities, include:
A quick word on the student loan. For most UK graduates it behaves more like a graduate tax than a normal debt - repayments are 9% of income above a threshold and the balance is written off after a set period. Many people leave it out of their net worth for that reason. There is no single right answer; just be consistent so your figure means the same thing each time you check it. You can see how repayments work with the student loan repayment calculator.
Take Priya and Tom, both 34, who have just had their second child and want to know if they are actually getting anywhere. Here is what they own:
Total assets = £310,000 + £48,000 + £14,500 + £9,000 + £6,500 = £388,000.
Now what they owe:
Total liabilities = £238,000 + £7,200 + £2,300 = £247,500.
Net worth = £388,000 − £247,500 = £140,500.
Notice the car: it is worth £6,500 but still has £7,200 of finance against it, so it is dragging their net worth down by £700 overall. That is the kind of insight a single number hides but the breakdown reveals.
Now take Jordan, 25, a year into their first graduate job. Assets: £1,800 in a current account and a £3,000 pension pot, so £4,800 in total. Liabilities (excluding the student loan, which Jordan chooses to leave out): a £1,500 overdraft and £4,000 on a credit card from setting up a flat, so £5,500.
Net worth = £4,800 − £5,500 = −£700.
A negative net worth looks alarming, but for Jordan it is a starting line, not a verdict. Clearing the credit card and overdraft over the next year - and the auto-enrolment pension quietly growing in the background - would flip that figure positive without any heroics. The point of tracking is to watch the line climb.
Your house and your pension usually make up most of your net worth, so getting them roughly right matters more than fussing over a sofa.
Your home: use a realistic selling price, not the optimistic number in your head. Check recent sold prices (not asking prices) for similar properties on your street via the Land Registry. If you might sell, remember the costs that eat into the equity - see the cost of moving house calculator for agent and legal fees.
Your pension: use the current fund value or transfer value, which your provider shows on your statement or app. For a defined-benefit (final salary) scheme there is no pot, so use the cash-equivalent transfer value if you have one, or simply note the promised income separately. The pension pot calculator helps you project where a defined-contribution pot is heading.
Cars and possessions: only count what you would genuinely sell. A car loses value the moment you drive it off the forecourt, so use a current resale estimate, not what you paid. Skip the jewellery, gadgets and furniture unless an item is worth enough to realistically sell.
There is no official pass mark, and comparing yourself to a national average is mostly noise - a 28-year-old renter and a 58-year-old homeowner are in completely different chapters. A more useful test is whether your own number is trending upward year on year, and whether your assets are working assets (investments, pensions, property equity) rather than depreciating ones (cars, gadgets).
One practical milestone often used in personal finance: aim to have roughly one year's salary saved or invested by your early thirties, building towards several times your salary by retirement. Treat these as rough waypoints, not rules. The MoneyHelper service, backed by the government, has free guides on building savings and pensions at moneyhelper.org.uk.
Net worth moves in two directions at once: you can grow assets and shrink liabilities. The fastest wins usually come from the liability side, because clearing expensive debt is a guaranteed return.
If you want a structured plan for where the money goes each month, the budget calculator helps you split income between spending, debt and saving.
Your net worth is measured before tax, but tax can quietly reduce what some assets are really worth to you. Pension withdrawals are taxable as income (usually 25% can be taken tax-free, the rest taxed at your marginal rate). Selling shares or a second property can trigger Capital Gains Tax - for 2026/27 the annual exempt amount is £3,000, with gains taxed at 18% within the basic-rate band and 24% above it. Your main home is normally exempt under Private Residence Relief. Income Tax also differs in Scotland, which has its own rates and bands, so a Scottish taxpayer drawing a pension may keep a slightly different amount than someone in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. None of this changes today's net worth figure, but it is worth remembering when you plan to actually spend an asset. For the official Capital Gains rules, see gov.uk/capital-gains-tax.
These figures are estimates for guidance only and are not personal tax or financial advice. For decisions about pensions, tax or large purchases, speak to a qualified adviser.
Net worth is assets minus liabilities — the single number that says most about financial position, and one most people have never actually calculated. It cuts through income entirely: a high earner with large debts can have a lower net worth than someone earning half as much.
Its real value is as a tracked figure rather than a snapshot. Measuring it once a year shows whether the direction is right, which is more useful than any individual month’s budget. The projection here extends that trend forward based on what you save and repay.
Once you know your number, plan the next step. Set a target with the savings goal calculator, check you are on course with the retirement calculator, and stress-test your debt position using the debt-to-income ratio calculator.
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