In 2025/26, the most you can pay into a UK pension and still get tax relief is £60,000 across all your pensions in the tax year, or 100% of your relevant UK earnings if that figure is lower. That is the headline answer to how much you can put into your pension tax free in the UK, but two things can shift it: high earners see the £60,000 shrink under a taper, and anyone with unused allowance from the previous three years can carry it forward and go well above £60,000 in a single year. If you’ve already started drawing from a defined contribution pension flexibly, a much tighter £10,000 cap applies instead.
The £60,000 Annual Allowance
The annual allowance is the main ceiling on tax-relieved pension saving. It sits at £60,000 for 2025/26 and covers every pension you hold combined, not each scheme separately.1GOV.UK. Tax on Your Private Pension Contributions – Annual Allowance A workplace pension and a personal pension share the same £60,000 between them.
Everything going into your pensions counts toward the total, including what your employer pays in.1GOV.UK. Tax on Your Private Pension Contributions – Annual Allowance That catches people with generous workplace schemes off guard. If your employer contributes £40,000 and you add £25,000, you’ve gone £5,000 over. For defined benefit schemes, the annual test measures the yearly increase in the value of your benefits rather than a cash contribution, which makes the sum less obvious.
Go over and HMRC applies an annual allowance charge to the excess at your marginal rate of income tax. A higher-rate taxpayer pays 40% on the overshoot and an additional-rate taxpayer pays 45%.2HM Revenue & Customs. Pension Schemes Rates In practice, this claws back the tax relief you had received on the amount above the allowance.
Your Earnings Cap Comes First
Even if £60,000 of allowance is technically available, your personal tax relief is limited to 100% of your relevant UK earnings for the year.3GOV.UK. Tax on Your Private Pension Contributions – Tax Relief Earn £35,000 and only contributions up to £35,000 attract relief.
Relevant UK earnings means employment income like wages, salary, bonuses, overtime and commission, self-employment profits, and certain taxable payments such as statutory sick pay and statutory maternity pay.4HM Revenue & Customs. Pensions Tax Manual – PTM044100 It does not include rental income, dividends, savings interest, or pension income. So someone with a £20,000 salary and £50,000 of rental income can still only get relief on £20,000 of contributions.
If you have little or no earnings at all, there is a floor. You can pay up to £3,600 gross each year and still get relief, meaning you contribute £2,880 and the provider adds £720 in basic-rate top-up.3GOV.UK. Tax on Your Private Pension Contributions – Tax Relief This is what enables pension contributions for non-working spouses, partners, and children.
How the Tax Relief Reaches You
Two systems deliver the relief, and which one applies depends on your scheme rather than any choice you make.
Under relief at source, you pay from your after-tax income and the provider claims 20% basic-rate relief from HMRC and adds it to your pot. Paying £80 gets £100 into the pension.5HM Revenue & Customs. Reclaim Tax Relief for Pension Scheme Members With Relief at Source Under a net pay arrangement, your employer takes the contribution from gross salary before calculating income tax, so you never pay tax on the money going in and full relief is automatic.6legislation.gov.uk. Finance Act 2004 – Section 193 Low earners in net pay schemes who don’t pay enough tax to benefit are now covered by an HMRC top-up paid after the tax year, sent directly to the individual.7MoneyHelper. Pension Tax Relief
Claiming Higher and Additional Rate Relief
If you pay tax above the basic rate and your scheme uses relief at source, the provider only claims the 20%. You have to claim the rest. A higher-rate taxpayer claims another 20%, and an additional-rate taxpayer another 25%.3GOV.UK. Tax on Your Private Pension Contributions – Tax Relief This goes through Self Assessment, or by contacting HMRC directly if you don’t file a return. The extra shows up as a reduction in your tax bill or a refund, not as more money in the pension pot. In net pay schemes, higher-rate relief happens automatically because the whole contribution came out before tax in the first place.
Scottish Taxpayers
Scottish income tax bands complicate this. In 2025/26 Scotland runs a 19% starter rate, 20% basic, 21% intermediate, 42% higher, 45% advanced, and 48% top rate. Relief at source always claims 20% from HMRC regardless. A Scottish intermediate-rate taxpayer at 21% claims the extra 1% themselves; a starter-rate taxpayer at 19% has received slightly more than their actual rate and may need to hand the difference back through Self Assessment.5HM Revenue & Customs. Reclaim Tax Relief for Pension Scheme Members With Relief at Source
Going Above £60,000 by Carrying Forward
Unused annual allowance from the three previous tax years can be added to this year’s. In theory, someone who contributed nothing for three years could pay in up to £240,000 in the current year without triggering a charge, as long as their earnings for the year support it.8GOV.UK. Check if You Have Unused Annual Allowances on Your Pension Savings
Two conditions come with this. You must have been a member of a UK registered pension scheme in each of the years you’re carrying forward from — you can’t reach back into years where you had no pension at all. And when you use carried-forward allowance, the oldest available year is used first.9GOV.UK. Pensions Tax Manual – PTM055100 HMRC doesn’t tell you how much unused allowance you have; you have to work it out from your own records. This mechanism is most useful for self-employed people with variable income, or anyone with a one-off windfall they want to shelter.
The Taper if You’re a High Earner
Your £60,000 allowance shrinks if both your threshold income exceeds £200,000 and your adjusted income exceeds £260,000.10GOV.UK. Work Out Your Reduced (Tapered) Annual Allowance Threshold income is broadly your taxable income before pension contributions. Adjusted income adds employer pension contributions back on top of that.
For every £2 of adjusted income above £260,000, your allowance drops by £1, down to a minimum of £10,000.10GOV.UK. Work Out Your Reduced (Tapered) Annual Allowance Anyone with adjusted income of £360,000 or more is on the £10,000 floor. The trap is the employer contribution add-back: a £230,000 salary with a £40,000 employer contribution produces adjusted income of £270,000, and the taper kicks in even though the salary on its own would have been fine.
The £10,000 Cap After Flexibly Accessing a Pension
Once you start flexibly drawing from a defined contribution pension, the money purchase annual allowance replaces the standard £60,000 for future contributions to money purchase schemes. The MPAA is £10,000 for 2025/26.2HM Revenue & Customs. Pension Schemes Rates Flexible access usually means drawing taxable income through flexi-access drawdown or taking an uncrystallised funds pension lump sum.
The point of the MPAA is to stop people from withdrawing pension money and recycling it back in for a fresh round of tax relief. Once triggered, it applies for the rest of your life. Taking the 25% tax-free lump sum on its own doesn’t trigger it, and neither does receiving a defined benefit pension or buying an annuity. Drawing taxable drawdown income does. The MPAA only limits money purchase contributions; if you also belong to a defined benefit scheme, a separate calculation applies to that side.
A Note on Tax-Free Cash at Withdrawal
The £60,000 figure is about paying in. It is separate from the 25% tax-free lump sum you can take when you eventually access the pension, which is capped at £268,275 for most people in 2025/26 under the lump sum allowance.11GOV.UK. Tax on Your Private Pension Contributions – Lump Sum Allowance If you’re searching for how much you can put in tax free, that withdrawal cap is a different question, but it is worth knowing the two figures exist and don’t interact.