HMRC tax refund: are you owed money back and how do you claim it?

Am I owed a tax refund? The main reasons

You are probably owed an HMRC tax refund if you paid tax through PAYE and your job ended part way through the year, you were on the wrong or an emergency tax code, you took a pension lump sum, or you paid for work costs your employer did not repay. According to GOV.UK, refunds also arise on redundancy pay, savings interest, annuities, foreign income and UK income earned before you left the UK.

To test your own figures, check the tax your code should take with the UK tax code checker, then compare it with your payslips and your P60. GOV.UK’s “Check how to claim a tax refund” tool points you to the right form but cannot take a claim itself.

P800 tax calculation: when it arrives and how to claim

A P800 is a tax calculation letter HMRC sends after the tax year ends if you paid too much or too little tax through PAYE, and according to GOV.UK these letters go out between June and March of the following tax year. For the 2025 to 2026 tax year, that means from June 2026 to March 2027.

You only get a P800 if you are employed or get a pension. If you are registered for Self Assessment, HMRC adjusts your tax return bill instead. Typical causes GOV.UK lists are a wrong tax code, being paid by an old and new job in the same month, starting a workplace pension, or getting Employment and Support Allowance or Jobseeker’s Allowance.

The letter tells you which way you will be paid:

• Claim online: use the online bank transfer service with the P800 reference number and your National Insurance number, or claim in your personal tax account or the HMRC app. The money arrives within 5 working days. You can ask for a cheque online instead, which takes up to 6 weeks.
• Cheque by post: if the letter says HMRC will send a cheque, you do nothing, and it arrives within 14 days of the letter’s date. Refunds for more than one year come as one cheque.

Act on an online-claim letter. HMRC’s PAYE Manual (PAYE91037) says that for P800s issued after 31 May 2024 for the previous tax year, HMRC no longer posts a cheque automatically after 21 days if you do not claim, so an unclaimed refund can sit on your record. HMRC may send an email or text reminding you, but it will not contain a link.

If the figures on your P800 look wrong, contact HMRC and say which amounts are incorrect and what they should be.

Leaving a job mid-year with no new job: form P50

If you stop working part way through the tax year and do not expect to work again before 5 April, you can claim your overpaid tax now on form P50 rather than wait for a P800. According to GOV.UK, you can use P50 if you have been out of work for 4 weeks or more and are not claiming taxable benefits, have retired without a pension from your old employer, do not expect to go back to work, or have returned to full-time study.

You need your National Insurance number, parts 2 and 3 of your P45, and details of any income since you left. Claim online through your HMRC account, or print and post the form. GOV.UK says to allow 14 days for a reply.

P50 is the wrong route in these cases:

• you expect to start a new job within 4 weeks: give the new employer your P45 and any refund comes through their payroll;
• you claim Jobseeker’s Allowance, contribution-based Employment and Support Allowance or Carer’s Allowance: wait until the claim ends or 5 April, and Jobcentre Plus may repay you first;
• you get a pension from your old employer: the pension provider makes the repayment;
• you are still registered with an employment agency.

If your last payday was in an earlier tax year, you claim for that year instead, within the 4-year limit below.

Worked example: leaving a £30,000 job at the end of September

A worker on £30,000 a year who leaves at the end of September 2026 and does not work again before 5 April 2027 is owed a refund of £1,257. The figures come from the site’s tax code engine (taxCode.ts) with code 1257L, monthly pay, England, no other income and no taxable benefits.

The refund arises because PAYE spreads the £12,570 Personal Allowance across 12 months at £1,047.50 a month. After 6 months only half has been used. Tax due on £15,000 for the whole year is (£15,000 minus £12,570) at 20%, which is £486, so £1,743 minus £486 leaves £1,257 overpaid. On £24,000, pay of £12,000 is under the allowance, so all £1,143 comes back.

From the end of October 2026, after 4 weeks without work, this worker can claim on form P50. If they wait, HMRC should find the overpayment after 5 April 2027 and send a P800 between June 2027 and March 2028. You can reproduce the monthly deduction with the UK tax code checker (code 1257L, £30,000, monthly) and the yearly tax with the UK salary take-home calculator set to £15,000.

Emergency tax codes usually fix themselves through payroll

An emergency tax code such as 1257L W1 or M1 often takes too much tax from a new job, and the refund normally comes back through your employer’s payroll once HMRC sends the right code, not as a separate claim. Give your new employer your P45, or complete their starter checklist if you have none. Our guide to the emergency tax code explains how much it takes and how long a correction takes. If the tax year ends before payroll puts it right, the overpayment appears on a P800.

Pension lump sums: P55, P53Z and P50Z

If too much tax was taken from a pension lump sum, you can reclaim it in the same tax year on form P55, P53Z or P50Z depending on if you emptied the pot and if you still work. According to GOV.UK:

You can claim each of these online after signing in, or fill in the form and post it. For P55 you estimate your income for the whole tax year, and HMRC checks it again after 5 April. P55 refunds are paid by Faster Payments; P53Z and P50Z refunds are sent as a payable order.

Work expenses: uniform, mileage, professional fees and working from home

You can claim tax relief on money you spent on things you must buy for your job and use only for work, if your employer did not repay you, and you get relief at your own tax rate. According to GOV.UK, a £60 claim at 20% gives you £12. A claim for the current year usually changes your tax code; a claim for earlier years is paid as a refund.

Uniform and work clothing

If you clean, repair or replace a uniform or specialist clothing, you can claim a flat rate expense with no receipts. The default is £60 a year (£12 back at 20%). Some jobs have higher agreed amounts: police officers up to chief inspector £140, and nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants £125. Backdating 4 earlier years at £125 gives a basic rate nurse 4 times £25, which is £100, plus the current year through their code. You cannot claim for PPE or ordinary clothes.

Mileage in your own vehicle

Business mileage uses HMRC’s approved rates, minus anything your employer paid. Commuting does not count.

For example, 4,000 business miles in 2025 to 2026 at 45p is £1,800. If your employer paid 25p a mile (£1,000), you claim relief on £800, which is £160 back at 20%. You must send mileage logs with the reason and the start and end postcodes of every journey.

Professional fees

Membership fees you must pay to do your job, and subscriptions to HMRC-approved professional bodies relevant to your job, qualify. Send receipts. Life memberships and fees your employer paid do not.

Working from home

Working from home relief has ended: GOV.UK says you cannot claim it for the tax year from 6 April 2026 to 5 April 2027. You can still claim the 4 previous years, at £6 a week or the exact extra cost, but only if you had to work from home, for example because your employer has no office. Choosing to work from home, or a contract that simply allows it, does not qualify, and from 2022 to 2023 onwards you must send evidence. At £6 a week, a basic rate taxpayer gets £1.20 a week back.

How to claim

Claim through the online service on GOV.UK, or by post on form P87 if your expenses are £2,500 or less for each year. Above £2,500, or if you file Self Assessment, you claim on a tax return.

Marriage Allowance and higher rate pension relief

Two allowances people often miss can be backdated into a refund: Marriage Allowance can go back to 6 April 2022, and higher rate pension relief must be claimed by you if your pension uses relief at source. According to GOV.UK, Marriage Allowance moves £1,260 of Personal Allowance to a basic rate spouse or civil partner and cuts their tax by up to £252 a year. See our Marriage Allowance guide for who qualifies and how the backdated years are paid.

If you pay tax above 20% and pay into a relief at source pension, your provider adds only 20%. You claim the extra on a Self Assessment return or by contacting HMRC. Our pension tax relief guide covers the amounts.

Savings interest: claiming with form R40

You can reclaim tax on savings interest for a previous year if your total income was below your Personal Allowance, and according to GOV.UK you must claim within 4 years of the end of that tax year. Most savers owe no tax on interest because of their allowances: basic rate taxpayers have a £1,000 Personal Savings Allowance, higher rate £500, and people with other income under £17,570 can also use the starting rate for savings of up to £5,000.

Form R40 is for people not in Self Assessment whose savings and investment income is £10,000 or less. It covers the current year and the previous 4, with one application per year. To reclaim tax that was deducted from interest, such as on a PPI payout, you must post HMRC a statement from the payer showing the gross interest, the tax deducted and the net interest.

If HMRC put an estimate of your interest into your tax code and it was too high, ask HMRC to correct it. Any overpayment comes back through your pay or on a P800.

The 4-year time limit: 2022/23 claims close on 5 April 2027

You have 4 years from the end of a tax year to claim back tax you overpaid for it, so refunds for 2022 to 2023 must be claimed by 5 April 2027. The rule is in section 43 of the Taxes Management Act 1970, which says no claim for Income Tax relief “may be made more than 4 years after the end of the year of assessment”. Schedule 1AB paragraph 3 of the same Act sets the same limit for overpaid tax claims.

The 2022 to 2023 year matters most right now, because it is the oldest year still open for working from home relief, uniform flat rates, mileage and Marriage Allowance backdating.

How long an HMRC tax refund takes

An HMRC tax refund claimed online from a P800 arrives within 5 working days, a cheque you request takes up to 6 weeks, and an automatic P800 cheque arrives within 14 days of the letter. For a P50 or P50Z claim, GOV.UK says to allow 14 days for a reply and not to chase before then.

For other claims, such as P87 or R40, HMRC publishes current processing times in its “Check when you can expect a reply from HMRC” tool, updated weekly. Wait until that date has passed before you contact HMRC.

Tax refund scams: how to spot a fake HMRC message

A text or email offering a tax refund with a link to click is a scam, because HMRC’s genuine P800 reminders never contain links and never ask for personal or financial details. According to GOV.UK, HMRC may email or text you about a P800 refund only after sending a letter you did not respond to, and those messages will not include a website link. GOV.UK tells you not to open links in any text that offers a refund in exchange for your details.

• Forward suspicious texts to 60599 and emails to phishing@hmrc.gov.uk, then delete them.
• Claim only by signing in to GOV.UK, your personal tax account or the HMRC app yourself.
• If you have lost money, report it to Report Fraud, or to Police Scotland on 101 in Scotland.

Paste a message into our scam message checker to see the phishing warning signs it contains, before you act on it.

What to do next

Start with the tax year closing soonest, 2022 to 2023, which you can claim until 5 April 2027.

1. Sign in to your personal tax account or the HMRC app and look for an unclaimed P800 refund.
2. Check each year’s tax code and P60 with the UK tax code checker, or browse the codes on the tax code hub.
3. If you left work this year and are not working again, claim on P50 once 4 weeks have passed.
4. List any uniform, mileage, fees or required home working from 2022 to 2023 onwards and claim online or on P87.