2026/27 tax year · bonus or pay rise

What does your bonus really leave you?

A bonus can push you over thresholds that cost far more than the tax on your payslip. Fill in two quick steps to see what you'd actually keep, then whether putting some into your pension leaves you with more.

Step 1

Your pay

Filled in with an example. Replace with your own.

What you're getting

Salary before it

The bonus

Pension you already pay in (a year)

Taken how

Student loan

Step 2

Your family

Children you get Child Benefit for

Do you earn more than your partner?

I have a partner

Your partner's income

Childcare support stops if either parent is over £100,000.

Children in paid childcare

Your nursery's hourly rate

What it leaves you

Where your bonus goes

You keep
Income tax
National Insurance
Student loan
Child Benefit charge
Childcare support lost

Why it costs so much

Step 3

Put some into your pension?

Paying part of it into your pension lowers the income every threshold is tested on.

How you'd pay it in

With the pension payment

The working

General information, not financial advice. A simplified model for employed income using 2026/27 rates for England, Wales and Northern Ireland (Scottish income tax differs). Childcare support is England's 30 funded hours (38 weeks, valued at your nursery's rate) and Tax-Free Childcare (20% up to £2,000 a child); both stop if either parent's adjusted net income is over £100,000. Child Benefit: £27.05 a week for the first child, £17.90 for others; the charge is 1% per £200 over £60,000. Student loan thresholds: Plan 1 £26,900, Plan 2 £29,385, Plan 4 £33,795, Plan 5 £25,000 (9%); Postgraduate £21,000 (6%). Speak to a regulated financial adviser before acting.

The worked example

The £10,000 bonus that leaves you £6,320 worse off

A bonus should be good news. Land it in the wrong place and it can cost a family more than it pays. Here's how that happens, and how putting half of it into a pension turns the result around.

Read the worked example