A BR tax code tells your employer or pension provider to deduct income tax at the basic rate of 20% from everything you earn through that job or pension, with no tax-free personal allowance applied. HMRC uses it when your personal allowance is already being used against another source of income, typically a main job. If BR appears against a second job or a pension you draw alongside work, it is usually doing what it should. If it appears on your only source of income, you are almost certainly paying too much tax.
What BR Does to Your Pay
Under BR, there is no threshold and no first slice of tax-free earnings. Every pound is taxed at 20% from the first penny.1Royal London. Tax Codes Explained Earn £500 in a week from a job coded BR and £100 goes to HMRC.
Compare that with the standard code most workers see, 1257L, which reflects the £12,570 personal allowance and only starts deducting tax on earnings above that figure.2GOV.UK. Tax Codes: What Your Tax Code Means BR strips that allowance out entirely for the income it is attached to. You still only get one personal allowance across all your income, so if it is applied to your main job, HMRC needs a way to tax additional income from the first pound. BR is that mechanism.
When BR Is the Right Code
Three situations account for most BR codes.
The first is holding two jobs at the same time. HMRC assigns your personal allowance to your main employer through a code like 1257L and applies BR to the second employer. You only get one tax-free threshold, so the second income is taxed from pound one.2GOV.UK. Tax Codes: What Your Tax Code Means
The second is drawing a private pension while you are still working. The pension provider typically gets the BR code while your employer keeps 1257L. This stops your personal allowance from being counted twice, which would leave you facing an underpayment when HMRC reconciles the year.
The third is starting a new job without giving your new employer a P45 from the previous one. Without your earnings history for the current tax year, the payroll system cannot tell how much of your allowance has already been used, so BR acts as a temporary safety net until HMRC issues the correct code.
When BR Is Wrong
BR is wrong when it appears against income that should be using your personal allowance. The clearest case is BR on your only job. In that situation you are being taxed on the first £12,570 of earnings that should be tax-free. On a £25,000 salary, the wrong code could mean roughly £2,500 of extra tax across the year.
It is also wrong if you have two jobs but BR has ended up on the higher-paying one while 1257L sits on the smaller one. That still uses your allowance, but not efficiently, and you may be paying tax at 20% on earnings that would otherwise fall within your untaxed slice.
Another warning sign is seeing 1257L on two different employers at once. That means your personal allowance is effectively being applied twice, and HMRC will come looking for the underpayment later. One of those codes should be BR.
Other Flat-Rate Codes You Might See Instead
BR is not the only code HMRC uses for secondary income. Which one is correct depends on where your combined earnings sit in the tax bands.3GOV.UK. Income Tax Rates and Personal Allowances
- D0 taxes all income from that source at the higher rate of 40%. HMRC uses it when your combined earnings push the secondary income into the higher-rate band (£50,271 to £125,140).2GOV.UK. Tax Codes: What Your Tax Code Means
- D1 taxes all income from that source at the additional rate of 45%, used where secondary income falls entirely within the additional-rate band (over £125,140).
- 0T applies no personal allowance but, unlike BR, still runs through all the rate bands as your income rises. It commonly appears when your allowance is fully used up or your new employer does not yet have the details needed to assign a proper code.
If you live in Scotland, expect an “S” prefix. SBR does the same job as BR but at Scottish rates. Seeing S1257L or SBR on your payslip is not a mistake, it just tells your employer to apply Scottish income tax bands.
How to Check Whether BR Is Right for You
Three documents let you work out whether the code makes sense.
Your current payslip shows the code being applied right now. If it reads BR, look at whether you have another job or pension where your personal allowance is being used. If you do not, the code is wrong.
Your P45, given to you when you leave a job, shows total pay and tax deducted for the current tax year up to your leaving date.4GOV.UK. Your P45, P60 and P11D Form Handing it to a new employer is the fastest way to avoid ending up on BR by default.
Your P60, issued after the tax year ends on 5 April, summarises your earnings and tax for the whole year.5GOV.UK. Your P45, P60 and P11D Form – P60 Checking it against what you expected to pay confirms whether BR was doing the right work across the year.
How to Get a BR Code Changed
The quickest route is HMRC’s “Check your Income Tax” service through your personal tax account on GOV.UK. You can view your current code, see what income HMRC has on file, and update your employment or pension details directly.6GOV.UK. Check Your Income Tax for the Current Year If the record was wrong, a new code usually follows within a few days.7GOV.UK. Personal Tax Account: Sign In or Set Up
To speak to someone, call the HMRC income tax helpline on 0300 200 3300, Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Have your National Insurance number ready. The adviser can check your records, confirm which code should apply, and send an updated coding notice to your employer.
Once the new code reaches your employer it usually shows on your next payslip. The correction is applied on a cumulative basis, so any tax you overpaid earlier in the same tax year comes back through your pay automatically. You do not need to wait for the year to end.
Getting Back Tax You Overpaid Under BR
If BR was wrong and the mistake was not caught during the tax year, HMRC sends a tax calculation letter called a P800 after 5 April.8GOV.UK. Tax Overpayments and Underpayments It compares what you paid against what you should have paid and tells you whether you are owed a refund.
If a refund is due, you can claim it online through your personal tax account and the money usually arrives within five working days. If you do not claim online, HMRC posts a cheque within 14 days of the date on the letter. Where more than one year is involved, you get a single cheque covering the total.9GOV.UK. Tax Overpayments and Underpayments – If You’re Due a Refund
The reverse can also happen. If HMRC decides BR should have applied to a second income and it did not, the P800 will show what you owe. Smaller amounts are usually collected by adjusting your tax code for the following year rather than by asking for a lump sum.