A P60 is the end-of-year certificate your employer gives you. It shows your total pay and the income tax and National Insurance deducted from it during the tax year, which runs from 6 April to 5 April. Every employer must give one to each employee still on its payroll on 5 April, and must do so by 31 May, on paper or electronically. The P60 for the 2025/26 tax year was therefore due by 31 May 2026, and the P60 for the current 2026/27 tax year will be due by 31 May 2027. If you have more than one job, you get a separate P60 from each employer.
What a P60 is, in plain terms
The P60 is your official summary of a year's earnings from one employment. It is the document a lender, a tax adviser or HMRC will ask for when they want to know what you earned and what tax you paid on it. Unlike a payslip, which covers one pay period, the P60 covers the whole tax year, or the part of it you worked for that employer.
Not everyone gets one. You receive a P60 only from an employer you were still working for on the last day of the tax year. If you left during the year, you will have received a P45 instead. Taxable benefits such as a company car are reported separately, normally on a P11D.
What is on a P60
The contents are fixed by law. Regulation 67 of the Income Tax (PAYE) Regulations 2003 covers the tax side, and paragraph 9 of Schedule 4 to the Social Security (Contributions) Regulations 2001 covers National Insurance. A P60 shows:
- Identifiers. The tax year, your name, your National Insurance number, any payroll number, and the employer's name, address and PAYE reference;
- Pay and tax. Total pay from that employment in the year and the total income tax deducted;
- Previous employment. If you joined part-way through the year, the pay and tax from your earlier job as taken from your P45, and the combined totals;
- Tax code. The code in use at the end of the year;
- National Insurance. Your earnings in each National Insurance band (up to the lower earnings limit, from there to the primary threshold, and from the primary threshold to the upper earnings limit), and the employee Class 1 contributions you paid, shown under your category letter;
- Statutory payments. Any statutory maternity, paternity, adoption, shared parental, parental bereavement or neonatal care pay received.
One point people often miss: an employer must issue a P60 even if no income tax was deducted during the year, provided you paid (or were treated as paying) Class 1 National Insurance.
P60, P45 and P11D compared
The three forms are often confused because they come from the same payroll. They do different jobs:
| Form | When you get it | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| P60 | You are employed on 5 April; issued by 31 May | Pay, tax and National Insurance for the whole tax year with that employer |
| P45 | You leave the job | Pay and tax from 6 April to the leaving date, plus your tax code |
| P11D | You receive taxable benefits not taxed through payroll; reported by 6 July | The cash equivalent of each benefit, such as a company car or an interest-free loan |
What you need a P60 for
gov.uk names two main uses: proving how much tax you have paid on your salary, for example to claim back overpaid tax, and proving your income when you apply for a loan or a mortgage. In practice it is also the starting point for:
- Self Assessment. The pay and tax figures go straight into the employment pages of a tax return;
- Checking your tax code. If the tax deducted looks too high or too low for your pay, the code shown is the first thing to check. See our guide to tax codes;
- Checking your National Insurance record. The National Insurance figures show the earnings and contributions reported for you that year, which is what your National Insurance record is built from.
Keep your P60s. A run of them is the simplest evidence of your employment history and income.
If you have lost your P60 or it is wrong
If you have lost your P60, ask your employer for a replacement. If the employer cannot provide one, you can find the same information in your HMRC personal tax account or the HMRC app, which hold pay and tax details for the last 5 tax years, or you can contact HMRC and ask for it.
If a P60 contains an error, the employer corrects it either by issuing a new P60 marked "replacement" (paper or electronic) or by writing to you to confirm the change. The underlying fix happens in payroll. The employer corrects the figures it has reported to HMRC through its real-time submissions, so that your record matches the corrected certificate.
The employer's side
For employers, the P60 is the last step of the payroll year end:
- Final submission. Send the final Full Payment Submission on or before the last payday of the tax year, marked as the final submission for the year, or send an Employer Payment Summary if the FPS cannot be marked;
- Issue P60s by 31 May. To every employee on the payroll on 5 April. Most payroll software produces them automatically. Employers exempt from filing online can order paper copies from HMRC;
- Then benefits. P11D returns for expenses and benefits follow, by 6 July.
The legal deadline is in regulation 67 of the PAYE Regulations ("before 1st June following the end of the tax year"). HMRC's employee guidance is on gov.uk.
Acumon produces P60s and handles the full payroll year end as part of payroll management. Individuals who need their P60 figures turned into a tax return or a refund claim can use our income tax return service.