An SA302 is HMRC's tax calculation for one tax year. It summarises your taxable income, the allowances and reliefs given, and the income tax you owe for that year. It is produced when you file a Self Assessment return. You can get SA302s for the last 4 years once the return has been sent, but not until 72 hours after the return was filed. Mortgage lenders ask for it, together with a tax year overview, as proof of income from self-employed people, company directors and anyone whose income does not appear on a payslip. Below is what the SA302 shows, how to obtain it, and the problems that most often hold up a mortgage application.
What is an SA302?
When you file a Self Assessment return, HMRC produces two different documents, and it helps to know which is which:
- The tax calculation (SA302). HMRC describes it as a summary of the tax you owe for the tax year. It shows your total income on which tax is due, the allowances and reliefs you have, the total amount owed for the year, and how HMRC worked it out. Commercial software may call it a "tax computation";
- The Self Assessment statement. This is your bill. It shows what you owe at the date of the statement, payments on account due, payments made, and any amounts outstanding from earlier years.
The SA302 deliberately leaves out payments on account already made, Budget Payment Plan payments, and other outstanding amounts such as penalties. That is why it is useful to a lender: it shows earnings and liability for a single year, not your cash position with HMRC. The tax year overview is the companion document, available from your online account for any year. Lenders often ask for both, matched year by year.
How to get your SA302
If you filed through HMRC's online service, you can print it yourself:
- Wait 72 hours after filing. Documents are not available before then;
- Sign in to your HMRC online account;
- Go to "Self Assessment", then "More details about your Self Assessment returns and payments";
- Choose the tax year and print or save both the tax calculation and the tax year overview.
If you or your accountant filed using commercial software, the tax calculation is printed from that software, not from HMRC's site. The tax year overview can still be printed from your HMRC online account. This is the usual position for anyone whose return is prepared by an accountant. Ask them for the computation, and download the overview yourself.
If you filed on paper, HMRC posts the calculation to you. If you cannot get the documents, or your lender insists on a copy on HMRC header paper, contact HMRC. Its guidance on the Self Assessment bill refers to obtaining a copy of the SA302 on HMRC header paper.
Will your lender accept a self-printed SA302?
HMRC's advice is to check with your mortgage provider that it accepts documents you have printed yourself. HMRC publishes a list of lenders that accept a printed SA302 and tax year overview, but that list was last updated in June 2020. Treat it as a starting point and confirm the requirement with the lender or broker before you submit. Points to confirm:
- How many years. Each lender sets its own requirement for the number of years of SA302s and overviews;
- Which years. Whether the most recent tax year must be included. If you have not filed the latest return yet, that becomes the bottleneck;
- Matching documents. The overview for each year should be consistent with the SA302. A mismatch, often because a return was amended or a payment is outstanding, generates questions.
Timing: getting the latest year on file
The 2025/26 return could be filed from 6 April 2026, although the online deadline is not until 31 January 2027. If you are planning a mortgage application, file early. A 2025/26 SA302 cannot exist until the return is filed, and a lender assessing income in late 2026 may want it. Your accountant will need your records in good time to prepare accurate figures, rather than the provisional ones HMRC allows when something genuinely is not yet known.
If a return turns out to be wrong, amend it before relying on the SA302. You can amend within 12 months of the filing deadline. An online amendment updates your bill straight away, and HMRC issues a new calculation when the amount you owe changes. Giving a lender a calculation you know to be wrong is a far bigger problem than a short delay.
Directors and the self-employed: what the SA302 does and does not show
An SA302 shows the income taxed on your personal return. For a sole trader, that is the trading profit. For a director, it is salary, dividends and any other personal income, not the company's retained profit. If a lender wants to see the company's profits, it will need the company accounts as well, because retained profit does not appear on the SA302 at all. Our guide to dividend tax explains how director dividends appear on the return. Anyone who has only recently started in business needs a return on file before any SA302 exists; see our guide to registering as self-employed.
Acumon prepares Self Assessment returns with lending timetables in mind, and supplies the computation and supporting accounts that lenders ask for. See our Self Assessment tax return service, or our accountants for sole traders if you are self-employed.