Repayments by plan for 2026/27, a year-by-year projection of your balance, and an honest answer on whether the loan is likely to be repaid or written off. Thresholds: GOV.UK student loan guidance for employers, from April 2026. Estimate only, not financial advice.
The headline repayment includes your postgraduate loan deduction. The projection follows your main plan's balance — a postgraduate loan has its own balance and its own 30-year write-off.
| Year | Salary | Interest | Repayment | Balance |
|---|
Yearly steps: interest is charged on the balance, then the year's repayment (the plan percentage of salary above the threshold, plus any overpayment) comes off. Salary grows once a year at your growth rate. Thresholds are held at 2026/27 levels — in reality most change each April, and Plan 2's is frozen at £29,385 from April 2027 to April 2030.
| Plan | Threshold | Rate | Per month | Write-off |
|---|
Thresholds for 2026/27 (GOV.UK). Your plan is set by when and where you studied — you cannot choose it; this table just shows how the plans differ at your salary.
Chance of repaying in full before the write-off date, on these assumptions.
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Test faster pay growth and see the effect on repayments and the write-off.
Thresholds and rates change each April — these are the April 2026 figures from GOV.UK. Verify yours against GOV.UK before relying on them.
What you repay on a UK student loan, plan by plan — and whether yours will ever be paid off or written off.
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What you repay each month on a UK student loan, how the balance moves year by year with interest and salary growth, and whether the loan is likely to be repaid in full or written off.
On Plan 2 with a £38,000 salary, repayments are £775.35 a year — £64.61 a month, 9% of the £8,615 earned above the £29,385 threshold. With a £45,000 balance and 3% salary growth, that borrower repays about £67,821 over the rest of the term and still has roughly £83,961 written off in 2053 — which is why overpaying would lose them money.
Repayments are a percentage of earnings above a plan threshold — 9% for undergraduate plans, 6% for a Postgraduate loan — taken through payroll like a tax. Interest is added separately: Plan 1 and Plan 4 use the lower of RPI or Bank Rate + 1%, Plan 5 uses RPI only, a Postgraduate loan uses RPI + 3%, and Plan 2 slides from RPI to RPI + 3% as income rises. The projection steps year by year: interest on the balance, then the year’s repayment, with salary growing annually, until the balance clears or the plan’s write-off term (25–40 years) ends the debt.
Plan 1: started before September 2012 in England or Wales, or in Northern Ireland. Plan 2: England or Wales from 2012 to July 2023. Plan 4: Scotland. Plan 5: England from August 2023. Postgraduate loans sit alongside an undergraduate plan and are deducted at the same time.
Interest is charged on the whole balance from the day the loan was paid out. Early in a career the repayment (9% of pay above the threshold) is often smaller than the interest added, so the balance grows until earnings rise.
Plan 1 after 25 years, Plan 2 and Plan 4 after 30 years, Plan 5 after 40 years, and a Postgraduate loan after 30 years, counting from the April after you left your course. Whatever is left is cancelled and does not affect your credit record.
Only if you are on course to clear it in full before the write-off. If part of the loan will be cancelled, every voluntary payment is money you did not need to pay. The overpay what-if on this page shows whether overpaying actually clears your loan, and what interest it saves if it does.
It is not on your credit file and does not change your credit score, but lenders count the repayment as committed spending in affordability checks, so it can reduce how much they will lend.
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