If your PAYE tax code is 1310L, HMRC has set your tax-free personal allowance for the year at £13,100. That’s £530 above the standard £12,570 that most employees receive under code 1257L. The extra £530 is almost always job-related: a uniform or tool allowance, a professional subscription, business mileage, or some combination HMRC has added to your record.
How to Read the Code
Every PAYE code pairs a number with a letter. Your employer or pension provider uses it to work out how much income tax to take before your pay reaches you.1GOV.UK. Income Tax: How You Pay Income Tax
The number is your tax-free income for the year with the final digit dropped. Multiply by 10 to get the real figure. 1310 becomes £13,100. 1257 becomes £12,570. HMRC arrives at that number by totalling your allowances and deductions, then dividing by 10 and dropping the remainder.2GOV.UK. Tax Codes: What Your Tax Code Means The L on the end tells your employer you’re entitled to the standard personal allowance category, taxed at the normal UK rates.
Why You Have £530 More Than the Standard Allowance
The standard personal allowance is £12,570, frozen at that level since April 2021 and set to stay there until at least April 2028.3GOV.UK. Income Tax Rates and Personal Allowances A code of 1310L means HMRC has added £530 in extra allowances on top of that baseline. In practice, the £530 usually comes from one or more of these:
- Flat-rate job expenses for a uniform, protective clothing, or tools. Different industries have different amounts, ranging from £60 to over £1,000 per year, so a modest uniform allowance combined with another small relief can land around £530.4GOV.UK. Check How Much Tax Relief You Can Claim for Uniforms, Work Clothing and Tools
- Annual fees paid to a professional body approved by HMRC. The full subscription is added to your tax-free allowance.
- Business mileage in your own vehicle, or other approved employment expenses your employer doesn’t reimburse in full.
1310L is not a fixed entitlement anyone can look up. It reflects your circumstances as HMRC currently understands them. If you don’t recognise where the £530 comes from, the definitive answer is on your P2 Notice of Coding or in your personal tax account, both of which itemise every allowance and deduction feeding into the code.5HM Revenue and Customs. PAYE Manual: Coding: Codes: How They Are Used and Calculated: P2 Notice of Coding
It Isn’t the Blind Person’s Allowance
A common guess is that 1310L reflects the Blind Person’s Allowance. The numbers don’t line up. BPA is £3,130 for 2025/26 and £3,250 for 2026/27.6GOV.UK. Blind Person’s Allowance: Overview Added to the £12,570 standard allowance, that produces a tax-free amount of £15,700 or £15,820, which would show up as 1570L or 1582L. If you qualify for BPA (registered as severely sight-impaired in England or Wales, or certified as blind in Scotland or Northern Ireland) and your code is only 1310L, contact HMRC because you may be missing out.7Legislation.gov.uk. Income Tax Act 2007 – Blind Persons Allowance
It Isn’t Marriage Allowance Either
Marriage Allowance is easy to rule out because it changes the letter, not just the number. If you were receiving £1,260 of your spouse’s personal allowance, your code would end in M (for example 1383M); if you had transferred it away, your code would end in N.8HM Revenue and Customs. PAYE Manual: Coding: Codes: How They Are Used and Calculated: Suffix Codes: The Suffix 1310L ends in L, so a Marriage Allowance transfer is not what’s producing the £530. If you’re eligible and haven’t applied, claims can be backdated up to four tax years.9GOV.UK. Marriage Allowance: How It Works
What 1310L Tells You About Your Tax
With code 1310L, the first £13,100 of your pay for the tax year is free of income tax. Anything above that is taxed at the standard rates for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland:3GOV.UK. Income Tax Rates and Personal Allowances
- 20% on income from £12,571 up to £50,270
- 40% on income from £50,271 up to £125,140
- 45% on income above £125,140
Scotland uses six bands from 19% to 48%.10Scottish Government. Scottish Income Tax 2025 to 2026: Factsheet Scottish taxpayers see an S prefix in front of the code, so a Scottish version would appear as S1310L.
One thing 1310L quietly rules out: the £100,000 personal allowance taper. Above £100,000 of income your allowance shrinks by £1 for every £2 you earn, and it’s gone entirely at £125,140.3GOV.UK. Income Tax Rates and Personal Allowances Anyone in that zone has a code number lower than 1257, not higher. A code above 1257L confirms HMRC expects your income to stay below £100,000 this year.
How to Check What Makes Up Your Code
The fastest way to see the breakdown is the “Check your Income Tax” service on GOV.UK. Sign in to your personal tax account (or set one up) and you can view your current code, every allowance and deduction that produces the number, and your estimated income and tax for the year.11GOV.UK. Check Your Income Tax for the Current Year12GOV.UK. Personal Tax Account: Sign In or Set Up
If something has changed (you no longer wear a uniform, your professional membership has lapsed, or you’ve picked up a company benefit), you can report it through the same service. HMRC will recalculate the code and send the update to your employer. Watch for a P2 Notice of Coding, which shows the new sums, and check your next payslip to confirm the change has flowed through. Under a cumulative code, any over- or under-deduction from earlier in the year adjusts automatically once the new code lands.
Watch for Emergency Versions of the Code
If your payslip shows 1310L followed by W1, M1, or X, or the word NONCUM, you’re on an emergency (non-cumulative) basis.13GOV.UK. Tax Codes: Emergency Tax Codes Each pay period is taxed as though it repeats for the whole year, ignoring what you’ve already earned. That often means overpaying tax in the short term. Once HMRC issues the standard cumulative version of your code to your employer, the calculation catches up and any overpayment is refunded through your pay.
If the Code Looks Wrong
Codes can drift out of date. HMRC may still be applying an expense you no longer incur, or missing one you’ve started paying for. If you spot the mistake mid-year, report it through your personal tax account rather than waiting. At the end of the year, HMRC reconciles your records and sends a P800 tax calculation if you’ve paid too much or too little; overpayments can be claimed back online, and small underpayments are typically collected by adjusting the following year’s code so the repayment spreads across 12 months.14GOV.UK. Tax Overpayments and Underpayments
Fixing an error mid-year is far less painful than sorting out a large underpayment after the tax year closes. If your 1310L code is giving you £530 you’re not actually entitled to, the safe move is to tell HMRC now.