How to claim a PAYE tax refund from HMRC
Last updated: 13 October 2026
Overpaid PAYE, uniform and work expenses, and form P87, using the 2025/26 and 2026/27 rates and the process published on GOV.UK.
Start with the refund checker
GOV.UK’s “check how to claim a tax refund” tool is the front door. It covers too much tax on pay from a job, job expenses such as work clothing, tools, fuel or working from home, a Self Assessment bill, a redundancy payment, UK income if you live abroad, savings interest, PPI, a life annuity, and foreign income. The tool does not itself pay the refund. It tells you which route applies. A pension refund has its own route, and the page says so.
PAYE overpayments often show up because a tax code was emergency, because a job ended mid-year, or because two jobs used the allowance in the wrong order. The emergency tax code guide covers 1257L W1 and M1. The personal allowance is £12,570 in both 2025/26 and 2026/27, and the basic-rate limit on taxable income is £37,700 in both years, so a month taxed on its own can look expensive against a full year’s cumulative code. The take-home calculator uses the cumulative 2026/27 rates. It will not reproduce a W1 or M1 payslip.
Uniform, tools and the flat rate
You can claim tax relief for repairing or replacing small tools you need for the job, and for cleaning, repairing or replacing a uniform or specialist clothing such as overalls or safety boots. A uniform is clothing that identifies an occupation, such as a nurse’s or a police officer’s. Ordinary clothes that you could wear outside work are not the claim, even if your employer likes a dark shirt.
You claim either the amount you spent, with evidence, or an agreed flat-rate expense. GOV.UK’s list says that if your industry and job are not shown, the flat rate is £60. The published illustration is that £60 at a 20% tax rate reduces the tax by £12. At the 40% higher rate the same £60 of relief is £24. That £24 is 40% of £60, using the higher rate that applies in both 2025/26 and 2026/27. It is not a second worked example on the expenses page. If your employer pays the expense, you cannot claim it again. If they pay part, you deduct what they pay.
Flat-rate claims do not need receipts. A claim for the exact cost does, when you claim by post. You can claim the current tax year and the four previous tax years. Someone claiming in 2026/27 can therefore look back through 2022/23, which is the same four-year window the uniform page describes as “the current tax year and the 4 previous tax years”.
Form P87
A postal claim uses form P87. GOV.UK says HMRC will reject a postal claim that does not use it. You can use P87 when the total allowable expenses for each tax year are £2,500 or less, you paid tax in the year you are claiming for, and the claim is within four years of the end of that tax year. If the expenses are more than £2,500, the form’s own note says you need a Self Assessment return instead. The P87 also covers professional subscriptions, mileage and laundry, not only a uniform. The flat-rate box on the current form uses £60 as the example figure.
A £200 receipt for specialist clothing, with tax paid at 20%, is £40 of relief. A basic-rate taxpayer in either 2025/26 or 2026/27 is at 20% on non-savings income inside the £37,700 band. The £40 is that rate times £200. If part of your income is at 40%, the relief on the slice that falls in the higher band is at 40%. The income tax calculator shows the bands before any expenses. It does not deduct a P87 claim.
A code change is not always a refund
HMRC often collects an overpayment by changing the tax code for the rest of the year, or for the next year, rather than by sending a payment. That is still your money, but it arrives as lower tax on later paydays. A 2026/27 code of 1257L means the full £12,570 allowance. A code that has been cut to collect an earlier underpayment will take more tax, not less. If the payslip ends in W1, M1 or X, the allowance is not being spread across the year, and a cumulative code is the comparison that shows whether the week was heavy.
Two jobs in the same year are a common reason for a refund. The first job may have used the whole allowance, and the second may have taxed every pound at 20%, which is right if the allowance was already used and wrong if the first job ended in May. The refund checker asks about pay from a job for that reason. The figures to have ready are the P60 or the leaving P45, not a guess at the month. For 2025/26 the basic-rate band on taxable income is £37,700, the same as 2026/27, so the rate on that second job is 20% until the year’s taxable pay goes through the band, and 40% after it.
Working-from-home relief is on the same expenses route only where the conditions on GOV.UK are met. The refund tool names it alongside fuel, work clothing and tools. This guide does not invent a flat weekly amount for 2026/27, because the uniform page’s £60 is for clothing and tools when no industry rate is listed, not a home-working rate. If you claim fuel or mileage, the P87 has its own boxes and the published mileage rates are on GOV.UK, separate from the £60 clothing flat rate.
What a refund is not
Relief reduces tax you have paid or will pay. If you paid no tax in the year, the P87 notes say no refund is due. A flat rate of £60 is not a cheque for £60. Marriage Allowance, pension contributions and Blind Person’s Allowance are different claims, with different forms. The Marriage Allowance guide covers the £1,260 transfer. Nothing here is a promise of how many weeks HMRC will take. The claim-a-refund page has a separate link for checking the progress of a claim you have already made.