Who Can Get Tax Back From HMRC?
Anyone who has paid more tax than the law requires can claim the difference back. That includes tax back on pay from a job, work expenses your employer did not reimburse, a pension, a redundancy payment, savings interest, and UK income if you live abroad [1]. The common thread is that HMRC does not always know you overpaid, so the money sits unclaimed until you act.
One rule sits above everything else on this page: every claim here is free to make yourself, directly with HMRC. You never need a refund company, and we explain why in the final section. The claim routes are:
- Correcting a wrong tax code (overpaid PAYE).
- Claiming work expenses through the online service or form P87.
- Claiming flat rate expenses for uniforms and tools.
- Transferring marriage allowance between spouses or civil partners.
- Reclaiming tax after leaving a job or paying emergency tax, using form P50.
This page covers how to make each claim. For what happens after you claim, how HMRC actually pays refunds, the P800 letter, bank transfer against cheque and the timescales, see our companion page on how HMRC tax refunds are paid.
Check Your Tax Code First
The single most common reason for overpaid PAYE is a wrong tax code. Your code is on every payslip and on your P60. For 2026/27 the standard code is 1257L, reflecting the £12,570 personal allowance. Codes go wrong when you change jobs, take on a second job or pension, or when an old benefit in kind stays in the code after it stopped.
Sign in to your personal tax account on GOV.UK, check the code HMRC holds and the estimated income behind it, and report anything wrong online. HMRC corrects the code, and tax overpaid in the current year comes back through your pay. For an earlier year, the correction feeds into a P800 calculation instead.
If you overpaid tax last year and want a refund from HMRC, this is where to start: the personal tax account shows how much income tax you paid in each of the last few years, which tells you whether there is anything to reclaim before you fill in a single form.
Claiming Work Expenses: P87 and the £2,500 Rule
Employees who pay for work costs their employer does not reimburse can claim tax relief on them. Qualifying costs include working from home (where your employer requires it), business mileage paid below the approved rates, professional subscriptions on HMRC's approved list, and the tools and specialist clothing covered by the flat rates below.
The claim route depends on the size of the claim:
| Expenses in the tax year | Claim route |
|---|---|
| £2,500 or less | HMRC's online service or form P87, per year, up to 4 years back |
| More than £2,500 | Self assessment tax return for that year |
This is why a large mileage or subscription claim sometimes pulls an employee into self assessment: a self assessment tax refund for expenses works exactly like a P87 claim, the return is simply the required route once a year's expenses pass £2,500. Relief is given at your marginal rate, so a basic rate taxpayer claiming £60 of allowable costs gets £12 back (20% of £60) [2]. For the current year HMRC usually adjusts your tax code; for earlier years it issues a refund [2]. Keep receipts, HMRC can ask for evidence.
Uniform and Tool Flat Rate Expenses
If you wash, repair or replace a recognisable work uniform, or buy small tools for the job, HMRC's flat rate expenses let you claim a fixed annual amount with no receipts. The standard uniform allowance is £60 a year; many trades have higher occupation-specific rates listed in HMRC's flat rate expenses table, so check your occupation before defaulting to £60. At the basic rate, £60 of relief is worth £12 a year, and a backdated 4-year claim multiplies that.
Worked Example: A Uniform and Tools Claim
Nadia is a lab technician in Swansea on the basic rate (20%). In 2026/27 she spends £350 on required equipment her employer does not reimburse, and she also qualifies for the £60 standard uniform flat rate. She has never claimed before and was eligible for the uniform flat rate in the 3 earlier years still inside the 4-year window.
- 2026/27 claim: £350 + £60 = £410 of allowable expenses. Under £2,500, so the online service or P87 applies. Relief: £410 × 20% = £82.
- Backdated uniform claims: £60 × 3 earlier years = £180. Relief: £180 × 20% = £36.
- Total tax back: £82 + £36 = £118, claimed free, directly from HMRC.
Marriage Allowance: The Claim Couples Miss
Marriage allowance lets a spouse or civil partner who earns below the personal allowance (usually £12,570) transfer £1,260 of that allowance to their partner, provided the partner is a basic rate taxpayer (income between £12,571 and £50,270 outside Scotland). It reduces the receiving partner's tax by up to £252 a year [3].
The claim is made online by the lower earner, takes minutes, and can be backdated to include earlier eligible years within the claim window [3], so a first-time claim covering several years can be worth close to £1,000 as a lump sum refund. Once claimed, it renews automatically until you cancel it, so remember to cancel if the lower earner's income rises above the allowance.
Getting Tax Back After Leaving a Job
PAYE spreads your personal allowance evenly across the year. Stop working in, say, September and you have only used half a year's pay against a code that assumed twelve months, so you have usually overpaid. Two situations, two answers:
- Starting another job within 4 weeks: do nothing. Hand your new employer your P45 and the new payroll refunds the overpayment through your first pay.
- Out of work for 4 weeks or more, and not claiming taxable state benefits or drawing a pension: claim now with form P50, online or by post, using parts 2 and 3 of your P45 [4]. You do not have to wait until the end of the tax year.
The same logic applies to emergency tax. A new employer without your P45 puts you on an emergency code and often deducts too much in the first month or two. Usually this self-corrects once HMRC issues the right code, but if the year ends before it does, the overpayment comes back through the P800 process.
Check if and when MTD applies to you
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The Four-Year Deadline
A claim must reach HMRC within 4 years of the end of the tax year it relates to. During 2026/27, that means:
| Tax year | Claim deadline |
|---|---|
| 2022/23 | 5 April 2027 |
| 2023/24 | 5 April 2028 |
| 2024/25 | 5 April 2029 |
| 2025/26 | 5 April 2030 |
The practical rule: check your oldest claimable year first. Every 6 April, one year drops off the table for good.
Why You Should Never Pay a Refund Company
Search any of these claims and adverts for tax rebate firms appear above the free HMRC route. Our position is blunt: do not use them. They complete the same forms you can complete yourself, then keep a slice of your money as their fee. Some have used deeds of assignment or nomination paperwork so that refunds, including future ones, were paid to the firm rather than to the taxpayer, a practice HMRC has moved against with its repayment agent rules.
We are not a refund agent and we do not process rebate claims: this page exists so you can claim free, directly from HMRC. If your affairs are genuinely complicated, pay a regulated accountant a transparent fee for advice, never a percentage of a refund that was always yours.
When an Accountant Genuinely Helps
Most of the claims above take minutes online. Professional help earns its fee when the underlying position is complex rather than the form: multiple income sources across PAYE and self employment, expense claims above £2,500 that pull you into a return, foreign income and double taxation relief, or an employer error running across several years. Our services team handles these, and our contact page has details for a free initial chat.
For tax code and allowance basics in plain English, see our fundamentals page. And once your claim is in, our companion page explains how and when HMRC will actually pay the refund.