Marriage Allowance, explained

What Marriage Allowance is

Marriage Allowance is the official name for an income-tax break introduced by the Finance Act 2015 and codified in the Income Tax Act 2007 sections 55A to 55E. It lets a married couple or civil partnership share part of their personal tax allowance when one earns under the threshold and the other pays the basic rate.

In 2026/27 the personal allowance is £12,570 (frozen by the Autumn Budget 2024 through to 2028). If you earn under that and your spouse is a basic-rate taxpayer, you can transfer £1,260 of your unused allowance to them. They then pay basic-rate tax (20%) on £1,260 less of their income. That is a saving of £252 a year for the household.

Who qualifies

Four conditions, all of which need to be true for the tax year you are claiming:

• You are married or in a civil partnership on 5 April of the claim year. Cohabiting does not count, however long you have been together.
• One of you (the lower earner) had income at or below the £12,570 personal allowance, with allowance to spare. That includes people who do not work, people on parental leave, part-time workers, students, and pensioners on the basic state pension.
• The other (the higher earner) is a basic-rate taxpayer. In England, Wales, and Northern Ireland that means earning between £12,571 and £50,270. In Scotland it means earning between £12,571 and £43,662 (so Starter, Basic, or Intermediate rate Scottish taxpayers, but not Higher rate).
• Both of you were born on or after 6 April 1935. If either of you was born before that, you qualify for the older Married Couple's Allowance instead, which is more generous and mutually exclusive with Marriage Allowance.

How much you actually get

The transfer is fixed at £1,260 a year. The receiving spouse saves 20% of that in basic-rate tax, so the household saving is £252 a year. That is paid as a reduction in the higher earner's tax code, so it shows up across the year as slightly higher net pay rather than as a single cheque.

The interesting number is the backdate. HMRC will accept claims going back four tax years, so a first-time claim in 2026/27 can cover 2022/23, 2023/24, 2024/25, and 2025/26 as well. That is up to a £1,008 lump sum on top of the £252 you save in the current year, for a maximum first-time claim of £1,260. The lump sum is paid by cheque or directly into a UK bank account.

Quick eligibility check

Five questions, no email needed. The answer comes from the same rules HMRC's own form uses.

How to claim it yourself

The whole thing is free on gov.uk. The lower earner makes the application, even though the higher earner gets the tax saving. Skipping that detail is the most common reason a couple's application gets bounced.

You will need:

• Both partners' National Insurance numbers.
• One form of ID for the lower earner: passport, last three months' payslips, P60, or a UK driving licence number.
• The date you got married or formed your civil partnership.

Apply at gov.uk/apply-marriage-allowance. The current year's saving will be applied through the higher earner's tax code within a few weeks. The backdated lump sum is usually paid within eight weeks.

Backdating four years

The four-year backdate is what makes this worth the ten minutes for most couples. The standard rule, set by the Taxes Management Act 1970 section 43, lets HMRC accept any tax-relief claim within four years of the end of the tax year it relates to. So as of April 2026, claims for 2022/23 are still in scope; from April 2027 they will not be.

For each backdated year, HMRC checks the same eligibility test against the figures it already has on file (your P60s, your Self Assessment if any, your PAYE coding history). You do not need to send P60s in unless something is missing. If a year doesn't qualify (the higher earner was a higher-rate payer that year, for example), HMRC just removes it from the backdate; it does not block the other years.

The traps people fall into

• Applying as the wrong spouse. The lower earner must apply. HMRC's online journey is set up that way, so use it rather than calling.
• Paying an agent a percentage. Several firms send branded letters that look semi-official offering to file the claim for 30% to 50%. None of them are HMRC. Marriage Allowance is free on gov.uk and HMRC pays the refund directly to you. There is no version of this that justifies a percentage.
• Higher earner getting a year-end bonus. A bonus that pushes the higher earner above the basic-rate threshold for one year breaks eligibility for that year only. The election stays in place; HMRC just doesn't allow the saving for that year. Worth checking your P60 if you had a bumpy income year.
• Not cancelling when circumstances change. If the lower earner takes a job over £12,570, leaving the election in place can cost them money (because they lose £1,260 of allowance they now need). Cancelling is one form on the same gov.uk service.
• Assuming Self Assessment captures it. If you file a Self Assessment return, you still need to opt in to Marriage Allowance through the dedicated service. The SA tickbox alone has historically not been enough.

How Untap helps

Untap's one-off section runs the same eligibility check as the calculator above when you talk to Nell, our voice agent. If you qualify, we deep-link straight to the correct gov.uk form and keep a note of the year you started so we can flag if anything changes. We don't file on your behalf and we don't take a cut of the refund. The HMRC form is the form, no matter who points you at it.

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