Student Loan Plan Checker
Which student loan plan applies to you is not a small detail — it determines your repayment threshold, your interest rate, and how many years before any remaining balance is written off, and getting it wrong means comparing your repayments against the wrong numbers entirely. This tool identifies your plan from when and where you studied, then works out your specific monthly repayment and full write-off projection.
Student Loan Plan Calculator
Compare all UK student loan plans side by side. See your monthly repayments, total interest, whether you'll clear your balance, and if writing off makes financial sense — based on 2026/27 thresholds.
Which Plan Actually Applies to You
Plan 1 applies if you started an undergraduate course before 1 September 2012 in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. Plan 2 applies if you started on or after that date in England or Wales, up to July 2023. Plan 4 applies to Scottish students regardless of start year, under a genuinely separate system. Plan 5 applies to anyone starting an undergraduate course in England or Wales from August 2023 onward, replacing Plan 2 for new starters. Postgraduate Loans run as a separate, additional plan alongside any undergraduate loan, for Masters or Doctoral study specifically. Getting this identification right matters more than almost any other input, since the wrong plan produces a genuinely different threshold, rate and write-off period, not just a slightly different number.
If genuinely unsure which plan applies, checking your annual statement from the Student Loans Company, or your online repayment account directly, gives a definitive answer rather than relying on an assumption based on rough dates — this is worth doing before relying heavily on a specific plan’s figures for financial planning purposes.
Same Salary, Wildly Different Repayment
A £32,000 salary repays roughly £19.61 a month under Plan 2, thanks to its comparatively higher £29,385 threshold. The identical salary repays roughly £38.25 a month under Plan 1, roughly £52.50 under Plan 5, and roughly £55.00 under a Postgraduate Loan — nearly three times the Plan 2 figure, purely from which plan applies, with income, employment and every other circumstance held completely identical. This is precisely why confirming your specific plan before drawing any conclusion from a headline repayment figure matters as much as it does.
Why Plan 5 Takes 40 Years to Clear, Not 30
Plan 5’s write-off period is 40 years from the April you were first due to repay, considerably longer than Plan 1’s 25 years or Plan 2 and Plan 4’s 30 years. Combined with Plan 5’s lower £25,000 threshold, this genuinely changes the practical reality for many Plan 5 borrowers: a considerably larger share are expected to still be repaying, or to see their balance still growing from unpaid interest, considerably later into their working life than under the older plans, and a meaningfully larger proportion are projected to have some balance written off after 40 years rather than clearing it in full beforehand.
When Your Balance Grows Instead of Shrinks
A £55,000 Plan 5 balance at a £26,000 salary produces roughly £343.75 a month in interest but only around £7.50 a month in repayment — the balance is genuinely growing by roughly £4,035 a year, not shrinking, since the interest charged considerably exceeds what a modest income above a low threshold requires in repayment. This is not a sign anything has gone wrong; it is a normal, expected outcome of the plan’s structure on this specific income, and it typically improves as salary rises over a career, closing the gap between interest and repayment before eventually reversing it.
The Frozen Threshold Nobody Told You About
Plan 5’s £25,000 threshold is frozen until April 2027, and Plan 2’s £29,385 threshold is separately frozen from April 2027 through April 2030 — meaning neither threshold is quietly rising with inflation the way Plan 1 and Plan 4’s thresholds normally do. A frozen threshold effectively means a real-terms tax rise on any salary growth during the freeze, since more of a growing salary sits above the unchanged threshold each year. This is worth factoring into any multi-year projection specifically, since assuming the threshold rises every year when it is genuinely frozen for a defined period would understate how much you are likely to repay over that stretch. This is worth being particularly aware of if you are early in your career on Plan 5 or Plan 2, since the freeze period covers a meaningful stretch of typical early-career salary growth. Our Student Loan Repayment Calculator is useful for a quicker single-year repayment figure once you have confirmed your specific plan here, and our Take-Home Pay Calculator shows your student loan deduction alongside tax and National Insurance for a complete picture of your actual take-home pay.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I have more than one student loan plan at once?
Yes — a Postgraduate Loan runs alongside an undergraduate Plan 1, 2, 4 or 5 loan, with each repaid separately based on its own threshold and rate, so a postgraduate borrower can genuinely be repaying two loans simultaneously from the same salary.
Does my employer automatically know which plan I am on?
HMRC tells your employer which plan to apply based on information from the Student Loans Company, though it is worth checking your payslip shows the correct plan type, since an incorrect plan on record can lead to over- or under-deduction that needs correcting later.
What happens to any remaining balance at write-off?
Any balance remaining at the end of the write-off period is cancelled entirely and is not taxable as income, regardless of how large the outstanding balance was at that point.
Does moving between England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland change my plan?
Generally not — your plan is typically determined by where you were ordinarily resident when your course started, not where you currently live or work, so moving after graduating does not usually switch you to a different plan.
Is it worth making voluntary extra repayments?
This depends heavily on your specific plan, projected career earnings and how likely you are to clear the balance before write-off — for many borrowers projected to have a balance written off regardless, extra voluntary repayments effectively repay money that would otherwise have been cancelled anyway.
Important Information
This calculator provides an estimate based on current 2026/27 student loan thresholds and rates for general information purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. For guidance specific to your circumstances, contact the Student Loans Company directly. See our Disclaimer for further information.