Free Payslip Generator (2026/27)

Create a professional UK payslip in seconds - free and unlimited

Whether you're a small employer paying your first member of staff, a director paying yourself a salary, or a contractor who needs a payslip as proof of income for a mortgage or rental application, getting hold of a clean, accurate payslip shouldn't cost you money or mean handing your details to a sign-up form. Yet that's exactly what most payslip tools demand - a fee per PDF, or an account before you can download anything. Our payslip generator is free, unlimited and needs no signup. You fill in the details, watch the payslip build live on screen, and download a tidy PDF.

Behind the simple form sits proper tax maths. The generator applies the Personal Allowance, the income tax bands for your part of the UK, and employee National Insurance for the current tax year, then divides those annual figures across whichever pay period you choose. The result is a realistic breakdown of gross pay, deductions and net pay - not a blank template you have to work out yourself.

What goes on a UK payslip

By law, employees in the UK are entitled to an itemised payslip on or before payday. A compliant payslip shows the gross pay, the deductions taken from it, and the net pay that actually reaches the bank account. Our generator captures all the usual elements:

• Employer and employee details - names, the pay date and the pay period
• Tax code and NI number - so the figures can be traced and checked
• Gross pay - the salary before any deductions
• Income tax - based on the Personal Allowance and tax bands
• National Insurance - employee Class 1 contributions
• Pension and student loan - if you choose to include them
• Net pay - the take-home figure

If you want to understand the rules behind what must appear on a payslip, the government's guidance on payslips sets out employees' legal rights in plain terms.

How the tax and National Insurance are worked out

The generator starts from your annual gross salary. It deducts your Personal Allowance (the slice you can earn tax-free), then taxes the rest through the bands - basic, higher and additional rate - using the right thresholds for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, or the separate Scottish bands if you select Scotland. National Insurance is calculated on earnings above the primary threshold at the employee rate. Pension contributions are taken as a percentage of gross pay, and student loan repayments are applied above the relevant plan threshold. Finally, the annual totals are split across your pay period - 12 for monthly, 52 for weekly, and so on - to produce the figures on the payslip.

It's worth being clear about what this is and isn't. It's an accurate estimate using standard rates and a cumulative tax code, which is what the vast majority of employees are on. It is not a substitute for payroll software that reports to HMRC in real time under RTI (Real Time Information). If you're running an actual payroll, you'll still need recognised software to file with HMRC - but this tool is perfect for records, illustrations, payslips for a director's salary, or checking that a payslip you've received looks about right.

Getting your tax code right

The tax code drives the whole calculation. Most people on a standard Personal Allowance have the code 1257L. If yours is different - say BR (all income taxed at basic rate), a K code (where deductions exceed allowances), or a Week 1 / Month 1 code - your real figures will differ from the standard estimate. If your code looks odd, our Tax Code Checker explains what it means and whether you might be owed a refund. It's surprisingly common to be on the wrong code after changing jobs.

Who finds a payslip generator useful

Small employers who haven't yet invested in payroll software can use it to issue clear payslips while they get set up. Company directors paying themselves a modest salary alongside dividends often need a payslip for their records - and if that's you, it's worth running the numbers through our Salary vs Dividend Calculator to find the most tax-efficient split, then generating a matching dividend voucher for the dividend part. Contractors and the newly self-employed sometimes need evidence of income for lenders or landlords. And employees can use it to sense-check a payslip that doesn't look right, or to model what a pay rise or pension change would do to their take-home pay.

Understanding your take-home pay

A payslip answers "what am I paid this period?" but the bigger question is often "what do I actually keep?" For a full annual breakdown - including how a bonus, a salary sacrifice arrangement or a pension change ripples through your tax and National Insurance - our Take-Home Pay Calculator and Income Tax Calculator go deeper than a single payslip can. Thinking about boosting your pension? The Salary Sacrifice Calculator shows how giving up part of your gross salary can cut tax and NI while growing your retirement pot.

It also helps to understand where each deduction goes. Income tax funds public services; National Insurance builds your entitlement to the State Pension and certain benefits - you can see how your NI record translates into a pension with our State Pension Forecast. Pension contributions are your own money saved for later, often topped up by tax relief, which is why financial advisers so often say pension contributions are among the most tax-efficient things you can do with your salary.

Privacy and accuracy

Everything happens in your browser. The details you type are used to build the payslip on your device and are not stored or sent to us, which is part of why there's no signup. The PDF is generated locally too. Because the calculation uses standard rates, treat the output as a well-informed estimate rather than a formal payroll record; for anything official, payroll software or an accountant is the right route. If you ever need to confirm a figure against the rules, HMRC's income tax estimator is a useful cross-check.

The bottom line

A payslip is a small document that does a big job - it proves what you earned and what was taken off. There's no good reason to pay per PDF or surrender your email address to produce one. Fill in the form above, check the live preview, and download as many payslips as you need, free of charge. And when you want to see the full picture of your pay and tax, the rest of the TaxFly toolkit is one click away.

A worked example

Suppose you're paid £36,000 a year, monthly, in England, on tax code 1257L, with a 5% pension contribution and no student loan. Your Personal Allowance of £12,570 comes off first, leaving £23,430 taxed at 20% - about £4,686 of income tax for the year, or roughly £390 a month. Employee National Insurance applies to earnings above the primary threshold, adding another monthly deduction. Your 5% pension contribution is £150 a month off the gross. Put together, your payslip shows gross pay of £3,000, the tax, NI and pension deductions, and the net pay you actually receive. The generator does all of this instantly and lets you tweak any input to see the effect.

Change the pension to 10% and watch the tax fall slightly (pension contributions reduce taxable pay) while your take-home drops by less than the full contribution - because some of what you put in would otherwise have gone to HMRC. That's the quiet magic of pension contributions, and it's why the Salary Sacrifice Calculator is worth a look if your employer offers it.

Directors: salary, dividends and the efficient split

If you run your own limited company, your payslip is only half the story. Many directors take a modest salary - often around the National Insurance or Personal Allowance thresholds - and top up their income with dividends, which are taxed at lower rates and don't attract National Insurance. The most efficient split depends on the year's thresholds and your other income. Model it with our Salary vs Dividend Calculator, generate the salary payslip here, and produce a matching dividend voucher for the dividend element so your records are complete. Don't forget the company pays corporation tax on its profits before dividends are declared.

Checking a payslip you've received

Payslips aren't always right. Errors in tax codes, especially after changing jobs or having more than one employment, are common and can leave you over- or under-paying tax. If your take-home looks off, compare it against this generator using the same salary and tax code. If the figures don't line up, the likely culprit is your tax code - check it with our Tax Code Checker, and if you think you've overpaid, our Check if HMRC Owes You Money tool points you in the right direction. You can also confirm the basics against HMRC's own tax estimator.

You might also need

• check the tax code on your payslip, so the figures are right.