Marriage Tax Allowance

Watch Martin's Marriage Tax Allowance explainer

Watch MoneySavingExpert.com founder Martin Lewis's four-minute introductory video on Marriage Tax Allowance to help you understand it (though it was recorded before the application system reopened).

This clip has been taken from The Martin Lewis Money Show Live, Thursday 13 February 2025, permission of ITV Studios. All rights reserved. The full episode is on the ITVX Hub.

What is the Marriage Tax Allowance and who can get it?

The Marriage Tax Allowance allows you to transfer £1,260 of your personal allowance to your spouse or civil partner if they earn more than you. Your personal allowance is the amount you can earn tax-free each tax year. It takes into account all taxable income, whether that’s a salary, pension or other forms of income – meaning even pensioners drawing a pension may qualify. 

If your claim is successful, it will lower the higher earner's tax bill for the tax year, but you can also backdate your claim if eligible. Only people with specific circumstances will be able to apply:

• You need to be married or in a civil partnership. Just living together, even if you've got children, doesn't count.

• You both must have been born on or after 6 April 1935. If not, there's a different tax perk. 

• One of you needs to be a non-taxpayer. This usually means you'll earn less than the £12,570 personal allowance between 6 April 2025 and 5 April 2026. To get the full benefit, the non-taxpayer actually needs to earn £11,310 or less.

• The other partner needs to be a basic 20% rate taxpayer. This means you'd normally need to earn less than £50,270, or if you live in Scotland it's £43,662. Higher or additional-rate taxpayers aren't eligible for this allowance.

In simple terms, one of you must be a non-taxpayer and one must be a basic-rate taxpayer. Yet, sadly, it's not always that simple... do the few checks below before applying:

Watch out if you're close to the income limit

Where the non-taxpayer earns between £11,310 and £12,570, there is a chance you and your partner won't benefit from Marriage Tax Allowance because of the way the tax is calculated. In some cases, you could actually end up out of pocket (even if you're technically eligible).

So if you're a non-taxpayer earning more than £11,310 check whether you'll actually benefit before applying for Marriage Tax Allowance.

Not sure if you're a non-taxpayer?

In rare circumstances, your personal allowance (the amount you can earn tax-free) may be different to the amounts above, but your tax code letter will tell you. This could be because you have a company car, you owe tax or your savings interest takes you over the threshold (see savings interest). For more guidance on tax codes, see our Free Tax Code Calculator.

Taxpaying partner earning just over £50,270? 

Marriage Tax Allowance has the effect of reducing the amount of tax your spouse or civil partner needs to pay.

However, while this is a result of transferring a portion of your personal allowance to your spouse, technically this transfer doesn't increase the threshold at which they'd need to start paying higher rate tax, nor does it increase their own amount of personal allowance.

This distinction is important as it means anybody currently earning slightly over £50,270 can't qualify for Marriage Tax Allowance on the basis that a personal allowance transfer would bring them to within the band of basic rate tax. 

As stated above, the basic rate taxpayer will need to be earning less than £50,270 in order to qualify.

How much can I get?

Marriage Tax Allowance for the 2025/26 tax year is worth up to £252. If you're eligible and apply successfully, you'll also automatically get the tax break each year going forward – so no need to keep reapplying.

In addition to the current year's allowance, you can backdate your claim by up to four tax years too, provided you were eligible – currently 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24, 2024/25. 

The amounts for each year are worth up to:

• 2025/26 - £252

• 2024/25 - £252

• 2023/24 - £252

• 2022/23 – £252

• 2021/22 – £252

This means that if you claim for this tax year and backdate the maximum four years, you'll get up to £1,258. You won't have to tick any boxes or make a special request for this – it'll happen automatically. If you're unsure if you're entitled, use HMRC's marriage tax calculator to see if you can claim.

The rest of this guide uses allowances and thresholds for the 2025/26 tax year, though as we say above you can also claim for four previous tax years.

How the Marriage Tax Allowance is calculated

The partner who has an unused amount of personal allowance can transfer £1,260 of their allowance to the other (so basically 10% of the full allowance). They can only transfer £1,260 – no more, no less.

Here's an example to show how it works:

How and when will I get the money?

It depends on which year you're claiming for:

• For the current tax year, the higher earner will simply pay slightly less tax on their take-home pay. This is done by adjusting the recipient partner's personal tax code. The partner who transferred their personal allowance will also receive a new tax code, if employed.
  

  - How long will it take until you see a change to your take-home pay? It usually takes two days to get a new tax code. But when you'll see a difference to your pay depends on if your employer gets it in time for the payroll cut-off date. For example, if you get paid on the 25th each month and your employer gets your new tax code on the 10th, it's likely to be applied that month, but if they only get it on the 23rd you'll likely have to wait another month.
  

  - Self-employed? If you're self-employed, your self-assessment tax bill will be reduced as HMRC will take into account that you've now got a bigger allowance.

• If you're backdating for previous years, you will get a payout. You can either get it via a bank transfer or receive a cheque.
  

  - How long will it take until you get the money? If you've submitted a form by post, HMRC says it will take between 24 and 29 working days after receipt to get the money.

MoneySavers' successes

We've been inundated with emails from MoneySavers who've had their tax codes changed and got money back. Here is some inspiration...

The non-taxpayer needs to apply for the Marriage Tax Allowance

It's the non-taxpayer who must apply for Marriage Tax Allowance. If the taxpayer applies, you're doing it the wrong way round and it won't work. You'll need you and your partner's national insurance numbers and, as the non-taxpayer, two acceptable forms of ID.

You can only apply for those years in which you both met the criteria. So, for example, if you earned more than the £12,500 personal allowance in 2021/22, HMRC won't allow you to claim it.

• Just applying for this tax year (2025/26)? You can apply using HMRC's online tool. This is the simplest way, as long as you don't need to backdate for previous tax years. Once you've applied online, you'll immediately be informed that your application has been received via email. If you have an issue with applying online for the current tax year, you can call 0300 200 3300 instead.

• Applying for this AND previous tax years? For backdating you can now only apply by post. You'll need to complete and post the Marriage Allowance Transfer Claim form (MATCF). It's a bit more effort, but it does allow you to request backdating for previous tax years at the same time as applying for the current tax year, so we'd suggest this is the easiest way of applying (rather than applying for the current year online and backdating via post). HMRC will write to you to tell you if it's been agreed – though you may have to wait a few weeks.

• Just applying to backdate? You can do this if you were eligible but aren't now, but again can only apply by post.

There's no cut-off date to apply, but if you want to apply retrospectively all the way back to the 2021/22 tax year (or you're just making a backdated claim for the 2021/22 tax year), you need to do so by 5 April 2026. Specifically, you need to ensure your application for 2021/22 arrives at HMRC by 5 April (your claim doesn't necessarily need to have been processed by then).

From 6 April 2026 you'll no longer be able to make a claim for 2021/22, so miss that deadline and you'll risk losing £252. As of 6 April 2026, you'll only be able backdate as far as the 2022/23 tax year. So we'd suggest you make a backdated claim for 2021/22 sooner rather than later to avoid any postal delays, and possibly use signed-for delivery (as HMRC won't confirm your application has been received).

See our section above about how and when you'll be paid.

Do note that if your application is successful you do NOT have to reapply every year. Your personal allowance will transfer automatically to your partner until you inform HMRC otherwise.

If your relationship ends either of you can cancel the allowance, but if you're cancelling because your circumstances have changed – for example, because employment is pushing you into a higher-rate tax threshold – the person who made the claim needs to cancel.

MOST couples will benefit from Marriage Tax Allowance, but SOME will lose out – check carefully if that's you before applying

We're sometimes asked whether there are scenarios when it's NOT worth applying for Marriage Tax Allowance. It's a legitimate question to ask, as there actually is a scenario where applying for Marriage Tax Allowance might leave you out of pocket. There's also a scenario where the non-taxpayer will start to pay tax, though not enough to offset the gain.

We run through these two scenarios here, with examples to help...

There'll be a slight GAIN if one of you is a non-taxpayer earning just below £12,570 and the other's a basic-rate taxpayer earning comfortably above

If you're the non-taxpayer and you earn slightly below £12,570, then by transferring £1,260 of your personal allowance to your partner, you will likely start having to pay income tax (oh no!).

However, in most cases like this it'll STILL be worth you applying for Marriage Tax Allowance – provided your partner comfortably earns above £12,570. Even if you've now got an income tax bill, the tax saving your partner makes should outweigh the loss you're incurring. Here's an example:

And here's another example of this in practice from one of our MoneySavers...

There'll be a LOSS if one of you is a non-taxpayer earning just below £12,570 and the other's a basic-rate taxpayer earning just above

This is the scenario where applying for Marriage Tax Allowance may actually leave you out of pocket. This happens when the loss incurred by the non-taxpayer outweighs the gain made by the taxpayer. Let's use another example to explain this:

So if you're earning near the £12,570 basic-rate income tax threshold, look carefully at the tax gain and loss each of you would have before you commit to transferring the allowance to your partner.

Marriage Tax Allowance FAQs