IR35 calculator
Enter your day rate and the days you work in a year. The calculator shows what you keep in the 2026/27 tax year in each of three ways a contractor can be paid.
What IR35 and the off-payroll rules are
IR35 is the common name for the off-payroll working rules. They apply when you work for a client through your own company and would be its employee if you worked for it directly. GOV.UK explains the rules in its guide to understanding off-payroll working.
Who decides your status
Whether a contract is inside or outside IR35 is a legal test of your working arrangements. For a public sector client, or a medium or large private sector client, the client decides and gives you a status determination statement with its reasons. For a small private sector client, your own company decides. The rules apply contract by contract.
HMRC's check employment status for tax service is one way clients and workers reach a decision. This calculator shows the money in each case and makes no decision on status.
How each case is worked out
Inside IR35: fee paid to your company
The client, or the agency that pays you, is the fee-payer. It works out a deemed payment from your fees. It takes off VAT, the cost of materials and certain expenses, and treats what is left as your salary. It then takes income tax and employee National Insurance from that amount before it pays your company.
The fee-payer pays employer National Insurance of 15% and, if it is large enough, the Apprenticeship Levy of 0.5%. GOV.UK says these cannot be taken from the payment to your company and are paid on top. The calculator shows the employer National Insurance as the fee-payer's cost. Your take-home is the deemed payment less income tax and employee National Insurance.
Deemed employers do not take student loan repayments. You repay a loan through Self Assessment, and the calculator leaves it out.
Inside IR35: umbrella company
Some contractors on inside contracts are paid through an umbrella company instead. The contractor is then the umbrella's employee. The umbrella receives your fees and takes a weekly margin. From what is left, it pays employer National Insurance of 15% on pay above £5,000 and, if you tick the box, the Apprenticeship Levy of 0.5%. The calculator treats the umbrella as a large employer, so no levy allowance is taken off. The rest is your gross pay, and your take-home is that pay less income tax and employee National Insurance, as on the take-home pay calculator.
Outside IR35: your own limited company
Your company receives the fees, takes off your expenses and pays you a director's salary. You pay income tax and employee National Insurance on the salary as an employee would. The company pays employer National Insurance on any salary above £5,000. If the director is the only employee whose pay attracts employer National Insurance, the company cannot claim the Employment Allowance, so the calculator does not apply it.
Corporation Tax is 19% on profits up to £50,000 and 25% on profits of £250,000 or more. Between the two, the main rate applies less marginal relief. The profit after Corporation Tax is paid to you as dividends.
Your salary uses your personal allowance first, and the dividends sit on top of it. The first £500 of dividends is tax-free and still uses up your tax bands. Dividends above that are taxed at 10.75% in the basic rate band, 35.75% in the higher rate band and 39.35% above it.
What the calculator leaves out
- Your IR35 status. The calculator does not say which case applies to you.
- VAT. Enter your day rate without it.
- Pensions. No pension contribution is made in any of the three cases.
- The detail of expenses. The calculator takes off the total you enter and does not check whether each cost is allowable.
- Scottish income tax. All three cases use the rates for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
- Associated companies and accounting periods shorter than a year, which change the Corporation Tax limits.
- Student loan repayments.
- Other income and the dates tax is paid.
Every rate on this page comes from GOV.UK. The sources page lists each one with the date we checked it, and the methodology page explains the rounding. Employees can see the effect of a pension paid from salary on the salary sacrifice calculator.
Spotted a mistake?
Email [email protected]. Tell us the mode and figures you entered and what you expected to see. Fixed errors are listed on the corrections page.