Payroll for the tax year 2025-26

The new tax year kicks off on 6th April 2025, bringing significant payroll changes that every employer needs to know about. From notable hikes in Employer National Insurance Contributions and expanded Employment Allowance eligibility, to new statutory payments supporting parents, staying informed is essential to ensuring compliance and maximising the benefits for your business and employees.

 

Here, Jaspreet Bassi from our payroll team breaks down the critical updates clearly and concisely, helping you get ahead of the changes before they take effect.

Table of Contents

Tax
  • Personal Allowance remains at £12,570
  • No changes to the taxable thresholds or rates for England, Wales & Northern Ireland and the chancellor has stated these will remain frozen until at least April 2028
  • Scotland are seeing some changes to their Starter, Basic and Intermediate thresholds.
  • The Scottish thresholds for Higher, Advance and Top rate tax remain as do the tax rates for all Scottish thresholds

 

NICs
  • The most significant changes announced are relating to National Insurance Contributions (specifically for the employer)
  • Employers NIC is rising from 13.8% to 15% as of 6th April 2025
  • The threshold from when employers begin to pay ER NIC is also being lowered from £9,100 to £5,000!
  • There are no threshold or rate changes for employee NIC as this continues to align with the Personal Allowance

 

Employment Allowance and Apprenticeship Levy
  • Huge increase to this – Employment Allowance rising to £10,500 from £5,000
  • Earnings cap of £100K will also be removed, meaning more employers will benefit from EA where they weren’t historically
  • Criteria still remains for EA regarding sole directors and connected companies
  • No changes to Apprenticeship Levy rate (0.5%), allowance (£15,000 across year) or pay bill (over £3million)

 

Small Employer Relief
  • SER is increasing from 103% to 108.5% meaning small employers can reclaim more against statutory payments
  • This is not applicable to SSP as this remains unrecoverable
National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage changes
 21 and over 18 to 20 

 Under 18 

  Apprentice

April 2024 (current rate) 

£11.44 

£8.60  

£6.40  

£6.40  

April 2025 

£12.21  

£10.00  

£7.55  

£7.55 

 

Apprentices 

Apprentices are entitled to the apprentice rate if they’re either:

 

  • aged under 19 
  • aged 19 or over and in the first year of their apprenticeship 
Statutory Payments
  • Stat payments are also seeing a small boost for 2025-26, covering all types of parental pay and sick pay
  • Rising from £184.03 to £187.18 (or 90% of average weekly earnings – whichever is lower) For the following statutory payments
    • Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP)
    • Statutory Adoption Pay (SAP)
    • Statutory Paternity Pay (SPP)
    • Statutory Shared Parental Pay (ShPP)
    • Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay (SPBP)
  • The statutory sick pay rate is also set to increase from £116.75 to £118.75 and the threshold for eligibility has also increased from £123 to £125 per week. There are potential developments to SSP which will be released later this year.
  • There is a new Statutory Neonatal Care Payment which will benefit parents of newborns who require specialist neonatal care (rate of pay is £187.18 or 90% of the employees average weekly earnings, whichever is lower)
    • This is available to employees whose baby requires at least 7 continuous days of neonatal care within the first 28 days of life
    • They would receive up to 12 weeks of paid leave in addition to standard maternity, paternity and shared parental leave

 

Student Loans
  • Changes to the threshold for Plan 1, 2 and 4
  • Post graduate threshold remains the same
  • Rate deductions remain the same
  • Introduction of Plan 5 for those beginning their studies on or after 1st August 2023

 

Loan Type

Rate

2024/2025

2025/2026

Plan 1

9%

£24,990

£26,065

Plan 2

9%

£27,295

£28,470

Postgraduate

6%

£21,000

£21,000

Plan 4 (Scotland)

9%

£31,395

£32,745

Plan 5 (England from April 2026)

9%

N/A

£25,000

 

Holiday Pay – changes for zero hour employees
  • Continuing the changes from 1st April 2024, employers can ‘top up’ employee earnings in any specific pay period at a rate of 12.07%. In other words, rolled-up holiday pay is now lawful for zero-hour or part-year workers.
  • Employers should determine the kind of worker they have to determine how holiday pay should be calculated and paid. Please speak with a member of our payroll team if unsure

 

Payrolling Benefits 
  • This shift means that benefits in kind will be taxed in real-time through PAYE tax deduction, rather than being reported at the end of the tax year as we are currently 

 

How Gravita can help

Ready to tackle payroll for 2025-26 with confidence? Book a consultation with our payroll team today for expert guidance tailored specifically to your business.

Similar Insights

Worldwide Disclosure Facility article
HMRC is increasing tax investigations. It’s time to consider the Worldwide Disclosure Facility
Written by Tax Partner, Dion Laycock The UK government has tasked HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) with...
Read More
Public service pensions
Public service pensions: urgent tax and pension updates after the McCloud ruling
Written by Tax Associate Director, Kelly Gould The McCloud ruling has major implications for public...
Read More
Live webinar banner (12)
What's keeping charities up at night? Economic insights, new accounting policies and VAT planning
Join Katherine Wilkes, Audit Partner, and Sandy Cochrane, VAT Partner, from Gravita as they talk to Will...
Read More

Sign up to Gravita's latest updates and newsletters

Stay up-to-date with our event invites, latest news and updates, straight from Gravita’s experts.