The 1267L tax code means your employer can pay you £12,670 a year before deducting income tax. That is £100 more than the standard personal allowance of £12,570, and the extra almost always comes from a job-expense deduction HMRC has added to your code, usually a flat-rate allowance for uniforms or tools or relief for an approved professional subscription.
How to Read the Number and the Letter
PAYE tax codes come in two parts. The number is your tax-free allowance with the last digit dropped, so 1267 stands for £12,670. Your employer’s payroll system spreads that figure across your pay periods and only deducts income tax on earnings above it.
The L at the end confirms you get the standard personal allowance with no unusual adjustments attached.1GOV.UK. What Your Tax Code Means It is the most common suffix. For comparison, the default code for most people with one job and no complications is 1257L, reflecting the £12,570 allowance that has been frozen since 2021 and is set to stay in place through at least the 2027/28 tax year.2GOV.UK. Understanding Your Employees Tax Codes – Section: Tax Code 1257L If your code reads 1267L, HMRC has added £100 of tax relief on top of that base.
Where the Extra £100 Comes From
Rather than making you claim job-related tax relief every year, HMRC bakes approved amounts into your code so the relief happens automatically through payroll. Two sources produce a £100 uplift most often.
Flat-Rate Job Expenses
Certain occupations qualify for a fixed annual deduction covering the cost of washing, repairing, or replacing uniforms and small tools. HMRC publishes the approved amounts by trade. For workers in agriculture, forestry, and some construction roles, the flat-rate deduction is exactly £100, which lifts a standard 1257L code to 1267L.3GOV.UK. Check How Much Tax Relief You Can Claim for Uniforms, Work Clothing and Tools
You can claim either the flat rate or the actual amount you have spent, whichever is higher. The flat rate exists so neither you nor HMRC has to track receipts for routine maintenance.4GOV.UK. Claim Tax Relief for Your Job Expenses – Section: How Much You Can Claim
Professional Subscriptions
If your job requires membership of an approved professional body, HMRC allows tax relief on the fees. The organisation has to appear on HMRC’s List 3 of approved professional bodies and learned societies.5GOV.UK. List of Approved Professional Organisations and Learned Societies (List 3) The subscription is added to your allowance, and a £100 annual fee on top of 1257L produces 1267L exactly.
Your code can also reflect a mix of smaller reliefs that happen to total £100, for example a modest professional fee plus a small uniform deduction. The PAYE coding notice HMRC sends you (form P2) sets out each component that went into the calculation.6GOV.UK. Claim Tax Relief for Your Job Expenses – Section: Professional Fees and Subscriptions
What 1267L Is Worth on Your Payslip
Compared to 1257L, the code gives you an extra £100 of tax-free pay per year. For a basic-rate (20%) taxpayer, that saves £20 a year, or roughly £1.67 a month. For a higher-rate (40%) taxpayer, the same £100 allowance is worth £40 a year. The code itself does not change with your rate. HMRC sets the allowance, and payroll applies the appropriate rate bands to everything above it.
1267L With W1, M1, or X After It
If your code appears as 1267L W1, 1267L M1, or 1267L X, HMRC is applying it on a non-cumulative (emergency) basis. Your employer calculates tax on each pay period in isolation instead of spreading your allowance across the year so far.7GOV.UK. Emergency Tax Codes W1 goes with weekly pay, M1 with monthly pay, and X with irregular schedules. This usually happens when you have started a new job and your employer has not yet received your tax details from the previous one. You can over- or underpay while the marker is in place; once HMRC issues a cumulative code, payroll should correct any difference in a later payslip.
Checking How Your Code Was Calculated
The fastest way to see your current code and how HMRC worked it out is the Check your Income Tax online service or the HMRC app, signed in with your Government Gateway credentials.8GOV.UK. Check Your Income Tax for the Current Year If you do not have an account, you can set one up during sign-in, though you may need photo ID to verify your identity.9GOV.UK. Personal Tax Account: Sign In or Set Up
The P2 coding notice is worth reading line by line. It lists your personal allowance, any flat-rate expense deduction, subscription relief, and any reductions for things like underpaid tax from an earlier year or untaxed income. The final digit is dropped, a letter is added, and that produces your code. Anything on the notice that does not match your situation is the place to start a correction.
Getting the Code Corrected
If something on your P2 is wrong, or you want to add a flat-rate deduction or professional subscription that is not there, you can update your details through the same Check your Income Tax service by selecting the current tax year and editing your employment record.8GOV.UK. Check Your Income Tax for the Current Year Have your National Insurance number to hand, along with any receipts or membership confirmation in case HMRC asks for evidence.10GOV.UK. If You Think Your Tax Code Is Wrong If you have recently left a job, ask the old employer for your P45 so HMRC has what it needs to set the code correctly at the new one.
If you cannot use the online service, HMRC’s Income Tax helpline is 0300 200 3300, or +44 135 535 9022 from outside the UK, open Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. You can also write to Pay As You Earn and Self Assessment, HM Revenue and Customs, BX9 1AS, United Kingdom. No street name or city is needed.11GOV.UK. Income Tax: Enquiries
Claiming Relief for Earlier Years
If you have been paying for uniforms, tools, or an approved professional subscription for years without claiming, you can still recover some of the tax. HMRC allows overpayment relief claims going back four years from the end of the relevant tax year.12GOV.UK. SACM12155 – Overpayment Relief: Time Limits for Making a Claim In the 2026/27 tax year, that reaches back to 2022/23. For a basic-rate taxpayer with a £100 flat-rate deduction, that is up to £80 recovered across four years, and the claim can be submitted online in around ten minutes.