
Do International Students Get Student Loan Uk – This page explains how to calculate your student loan repayments using Pay As You Earn (PAYE) if you have a student loan under Plans 1, 2 or 4 If you have postgraduate debt, see our personal page.
If you have gone to work abroad and are not part of the UK tax system, you will need to arrange payment directly with the Student Loans Company (SLC).
Do International Students Get Student Loan Uk

Your employer will usually take your student loan repayments out of your pay via PAYE. Pay slips usually contain an entry that describes the “student loan” but does not explain how the payment was calculated. Your employer makes payments to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), who then pay the SLC. The SLC will then show them the new loan balance on your borrower account, but it may take some time to update it to reflect the actual balance.
August 29, 2024
If you are close to paying off your loan in full, it is sometimes possible to ‘forgive’ PAYE and arrange a direct debit from your SLC instead. This is explained under the heading below: Schedule 1, Schedule 2 and Schedule 4 PAYE exemptions.
If you start work at the start of the tax year in which you start paying, your SLC must notify HMRC. HMRC in turn issues a ‘notice of commencement’ to the employer, who then calculates student loan deductions, together with tax and insurance contributions, and pays HMRC through the PAYE system.
When you start working, your employer should ask if you have any student loans to begin repayment. Your employer will ask what kind of credit you have. It is important to provide accurate information as this will affect the repayment of the loan. To help explain how to answer the questions for the correct repayment of the loan, we have provided a visual example of the previous checklist.
If you believe you are taking deductions using the wrong student loan plan, you should first check with your employer to find out what type of plan they use for student loan deductions If you believe this is incorrect, you need to confirm the plan type with SLC . You must tell your employer the exact student plan. HMRC also checks that employers are repaying student loans using the correct type of plan and recommends changes if the wrong type of plan is used.
Scholarships And Fees
The exact way you repay your PAYE loan depends on the term – we look at some examples below, which are the same whether you have a Schedule 1, Schedule 2 or Schedule 4 student loan.
John left university in the summer of 2023 and immediately got a job. He doesn’t have a P45 so his employer has requested the information to complete a new entry checklist.
Although Jan took out a student loan, she didn’t leave the course until after 6 April, so her employer didn’t have to start calculating loan repayments in the 2023/24 tax year, even though she paid back the excess amount. .
But from April 2024, HMRC will have to give the employer a “notice to commence work” and credit deductions will start if Ian earns more than the payment limit.
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Francesca has income-related student loans. He will leave the university in the summer of 2023, but he will not find a job yet.
He will be employed in May 2024 and his employer is requesting information to complete a new entry checklist. Since she left the course before April 6, 2024, if Francesca’s earnings are high enough, her employer must begin withholding her wages immediately.
Your income for student loan is calculated in the same way as for National Insurance Contributions (NIC). This is not always the same as taxable income. For example, NIC is not payable on the employer’s debts to you, and tips may not be subject to NIC. You can find the NIC guide to tax and benefits in an alphabetical list on GOV.UK.
When calculating the amount you have to pay, any income from work before the payment start date is not taken into account.
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Employer pension contributions are normally deducted from your salary for income tax purposes, but they don’t reduce your salary for National Insurance purposes and so student loan repayments are taken into account in the calculation
The taxable pension income you receive is considered unearned income, not earned, so when you file your tax return, the money could be affected.
Plan 1, Plan 2, and Plan 4 pay 9% of income above the applicable student loan repayment limit.
Each payment date is considered separately. Your payments may vary depending on how much you pay in a particular week or month. If your earnings fall below the initial threshold for that week or month, the employer does not have to deduct.
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Essentially, your employer calculates and deducts payments each payday. You can only get a refund based on your annual income if your income for the tax year is less than the repayment limit of the loan you are making payments on. We will explain more about returns at the bottom of this page.
The examples below show how payments are calculated depending on whether you have a Schedule 1, Schedule 2 or Schedule 4 loan. If you’re paying off more than one loan, we have further instructions.
Jack gets paid every month. Her employer has received a ‘notice of commencement’ from HMRC to start deducting Plan 1 student loan repayments from 6 April 2024 if her earnings are above the threshold of £24,990 a year, which is £2,082.50 sterling per month.
Jack’s basic salary is £24,000 a year or £2,000 a month, but the summer months are busy and he has to work overtime. In July, he receives an extra £450 and notices that his paycheck has been deducted to pay off his student loan. He asks how it is calculated and why he has to pay.
A V Management
His employer claims his gross earnings for July were £2,450, £367.50 more than the monthly loan repayment limit of £2,082.50. This is multiplied by 9% to get a deduction of £33.07 on a student loan of £367.50.
Patrick receives a salary every month. Her employer received a ‘notice of commencement’ from HMRC to start deducting her Schedule 2 student loan payments from 6 April 2024 if her income exceeds the threshold of £27,295 a year, which is £2,275 a month .
Patrick’s basic salary is £21,000 a year, or £1,750 a month, but the summer months are busy and he has to work overtime. In July, he receives an extra £800 and notices that a student loan payment has been deducted from his salary. He asks how it is calculated and why he has to pay.
His employer says his gross earnings for July were £2,550, £275 above the £2,275 monthly loan repayment limit. This is multiplied by 9% to get a deduction of £24.75 on a student loan of £275.
Student Bank Account
Lakbir completed his undergraduate degree in 2015 and paid off his student debt through Payment Plan 1. He currently earns £33,000 a year (£2,750 a month) and was told that his student loan repayments would be rolled over from April 2021 1 per plan 4.
If Lakbir earns more than the Schedule 4 repayment limit, the student loan is automatically repaid: £31,395 per year for the 25/2024 tax year, which is £2,616 per month.
At the end of April 2024, Lockbeer checks his statement and sees that £12.06 has been deducted from his ‘student loan’. This is calculated from the total Lakbir payment (before tax and NICs) of £2,750 minus the monthly payment threshold of £2,616 x the payment rate (9%):
Later, when Lakbir checks his borrower’s SLC balance, he sees that the deduction has been deducted from his outstanding balance.
Student Loan Repayments
So, as you can see from the examples above, student loan deductions are calculated on a “maturity” basis. Here’s how National Insurance Contributions (NICs) are processed. In most cases, this is weekly or monthly, depending on how often you get paid.
This means that your employer cannot provide additional loans up to the annual repayment limit of your loan plan and will not be able to repay it next month if your salary falls below the starting salary.
If your income is variable and your earnings change from pay period to pay period, this may result in you earning more than the pay limit in some pay periods.