Relief by salary
Pension tax relief on a £100,000 salary
The calculator opens on £100,000 with £8,000 paid into a relief at source pension. Raise the salary by a few thousand pounds to watch the relief climb as the Personal Allowance taper starts.
Independent site, not a government service. Relief is claimed through your pension provider, your payroll or HMRC (Self Assessment or the GOV.UK claim service).
Example, not your result yet· change a figure to see yours
Goes into your pension
£10,000
Costs you £6,000: 40% comes from tax and NI relief (higher rate taxpayer).
| You pay from your bank | £8,000 |
| Added by your provider (20%) | £2,000 |
| To claim back from HMRC | £2,000 |
| Cost to your take-home pay | £6,000 |
The provider only ever claims 20%. The rest comes back through your Self Assessment return or HMRC’s online claim, as a refund or a change to your tax code.
A salary of exactly £100,000 keeps the full Personal Allowance of £12,570, because the taper only starts above that figure: £1 of allowance is lost for every £2 of adjusted net income over £100,000, until none is left at £125,140 (GOV.UK). At £100,000 itself a contribution is relieved at 40%: £8,000 paid by relief at source becomes £10,000 and brings back £2,000, for a real cost of £6,000. The picture changes with any rise. At £110,000 the same payment brings back £4,000, because it restores £5,000 of Personal Allowance as well as removing 40% tax: 60% relief in all. Adjusted net income is reduced by gross pension contributions, by relief at source, net pay or salary sacrifice, so a bonus paid into the pension avoids the taper entirely.
Figures checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · How the sums are done
The contribution that brings income back to £100,000
| Adjusted net income | Gross contribution needed | Income Tax saved | Allowance won back | Relief |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £100,000 | £0 | £0 | £0 | 40% on new money |
| £105,000 | £5,000 | £3,000 | £2,500 | 60% |
| £110,000 | £10,000 | £6,000 | £5,000 | 60% |
| £115,000 | £15,000 | £9,000 | £7,500 | 60% |
| £120,000 | £20,000 | £12,000 | £10,000 | 60% |
| £125,140 | £25,140 | £15,084 | £12,570 | 60% |
The relief rate is 60% at every step, because each gross pound saves 40p of higher rate tax and wins back 50p of allowance taxed at 40%. The figures stop at £125,140, where the allowance is gone entirely and the additional rate begins.
Childcare support at the same line
The £100,000 line is also the limit for Tax-Free Childcare: a parent, or their partner, whose expected adjusted net income for the year is over it cannot get the scheme (GOV.UK, Tax-Free Childcare eligibility). Keeping adjusted net income at or below £100,000 through pension contributions keeps that support, which can be worth more than the tax for a family paying for nursery. On £104,000, sacrificing £4,000 costs £1,520 of take-home pay. HM Treasury and HMRC’s paper on the April 2029 cap confirms that employees who sacrifice salary to keep Tax-Free Childcare or Child Benefit can go on doing so, with NI due above £2,000.
Where to go next
Contributions by relief at source must be claimed to reduce adjusted net income in the tax calculation, through Self Assessment or HMRC’s claim service. Relief is limited to your earnings for the year (Finance Act 2004, section 190), which is rarely a constraint here. The guide to pension contributions over £100,000 covers timing, bonuses and the end of the taper. The £125,000 page shows the case where the whole allowance has gone.
One more case is common at this salary: a bonus paid in March that lifts income above £100,000 for a single tax year. A relief at source payment made before 6 April, equal to the gross amount over the line, brings adjusted net income back down for that year once the claim is made. The calculator shows the cost of that payment for any income you enter.
Net pay, relief at source or sacrifice at this level
All three methods give the same Income Tax result once any claim is made, because each one reduces adjusted net income by the gross contribution. The differences are in NI and in timing. Sacrifice saves 2% employee NI and up to 15% for the employer; net pay gives the relief on payday; relief at source needs a claim, and until it is processed your tax code may collect too much. For a payment meant to keep income under £100,000, the method that acts within the same tax year without paperwork is often the simplest.