The P11 tax form, formally the P11 Deductions Working Sheet, is the UK payroll record an employer uses to track a single employee’s pay, income tax, and National Insurance contributions across one tax year running from 6 April to 5 April. Since Real Time Information (RTI) reporting became mandatory in 2013-14, payroll software has replaced the paper P11 for almost every employer, doing the same calculations internally and sending the results to HMRC on each payday. The form itself is now only completed by employers with an agreed exemption from online filing, but the logic it sets out still governs how every PAYE calculation works.
What the P11 Records
The P11 gives each employee one running sheet for the tax year. Every row is a pay period: weeks 1 to 52 (or 53 in some years) for weekly-paid staff, months 1 to 12 for monthly-paid staff. The columns capture gross pay for the period, cumulative gross pay, the tax-free allowance for that period, cumulative taxable pay, tax due, and any refund. A parallel set of columns handles National Insurance, splitting employee and employer contributions and noting earnings at the Lower Earnings Limit and above the Secondary Threshold. Statutory payments such as Statutory Sick Pay and Statutory Maternity Pay have their own sections.
Before RTI, employers added up the column totals at year end and sent them to HMRC. Payroll software now does that arithmetic every payday and transmits the figures through a Full Payment Submission. HMRC’s own guidance confirms that the P11 was used by employers who did not report PAYE through RTI, and that from 2013-14 employers moved to Full Payment Submissions instead.1GOV.UK. Statutory Payments Manual – SPM210600 – Record Keeping
Information You Need to Fill One In
Every P11 opens with the employee’s identifying details: full legal name, National Insurance number, and tax code. The National Insurance number is a unique lifetime identifier that tracks the person’s contribution record. Employees can legally start work before receiving their number, but you should get it as soon as possible so contributions land against the right record.
The tax code tells you how much of each pay period’s earnings is free from income tax. For 2026-27, the standard personal allowance is £12,570, giving the tax code 1257L. HMRC issues the code, and it can change mid-year if the employee’s circumstances change.
New Starters Without a P45
A new joiner should hand you a P45 from their previous employer. It carries their tax code plus year-to-date pay and tax, which you need for cumulative calculations. If they do not have one, they complete a Starter Checklist instead, which gives you enough to set up their record.2GOV.UK. Starter Checklist if You Are Starting a New Job
With neither document, you apply an emergency tax code. The standard emergency code is 1257L on a Week 1 or Month 1 basis: the employee gets the correct personal allowance, but tax is calculated only on that period’s earnings, ignoring anything earned earlier in the year.3GOV.UK. Tax Codes – Emergency Tax Codes Once HMRC issues the correct cumulative code, any tax overpaid gets refunded through the payroll automatically.
How the Tax Calculation Works
Most employees are taxed cumulatively. You add up all their gross pay since 6 April, subtract the total tax-free allowance accrued to that point, and the difference is cumulative taxable pay. Compare the tax due on that figure with what has already been deducted in earlier periods, and the difference is the tax for the current period. Because the calculation is self-correcting, a quieter month can produce a refund of tax overpaid earlier in the year.
The alternative is the non-cumulative Week 1 or Month 1 basis, where each period is treated in isolation. Emergency codes work this way, and HMRC sometimes assigns non-cumulative codes to employees with complex tax situations. On the P11, any refund produced by the cumulative calculation goes in its own column so the running balance stays legible.
Employers still doing manual calculations use HMRC’s Pay Adjustment Tables (Tables A) to work out free pay and additional pay for each tax code.4GOV.UK. Tables A – Pay Adjustment Tables Separate tax tables cover the actual income tax rates for English, Scottish, and Welsh taxpayers. These manual tables are intended only for the small number of employers with an agreed exemption from online filing.
How the National Insurance Section Works
National Insurance has its own thresholds and rates, and unlike income tax it is never cumulative. Each pay period stands alone, and there are no refunds for a quiet week.
For 2026-27, the key figures for a Category A employee (the most common category) are:
- Lower Earnings Limit: £129 per week. Earnings at or above this level count toward State Pension qualification even though no contributions are deducted.
- Primary Threshold: £242 per week. Employee contributions start above this point.
- Upper Earnings Limit: £967 per week. The employee rate drops above this level.
- Employee rates: 8% between the Primary Threshold and the Upper Earnings Limit, and 2% above the Upper Earnings Limit.
- Secondary Threshold: £96 per week. Employer contributions start above this much lower threshold.
- Employer rate: 15% on all earnings above the Secondary Threshold, with no upper cap.
These rates and thresholds are unchanged from 2025-26.5GOV.UK. Rates and Allowances – National Insurance Contributions Different category letters apply to employees under 21, apprentices under 25, and certain other groups, each with their own thresholds, though most employers deal with only one or two categories.
On the P11, the NI section records both employee and employer contributions in separate columns each pay period, along with total earnings at the Lower Earnings Limit and above the Secondary Threshold, because those figures feed year-end reporting.
Who Still Uses the P11 Today
Since April 2013, almost every employer reports payroll data to HMRC in real time. Each time you pay someone, your software sends a Full Payment Submission containing the information the P11 used to hold: gross pay, tax, National Insurance, and student loan deductions.6GOV.UK. Reporting to HMRC – FPS The FPS has to be sent on or before the employee’s payday.
Employers with fewer than 10 employees who prefer not to buy commercial software can use HMRC’s free Basic PAYE Tools, which handles the tax and National Insurance calculations and files FPS and Employer Payment Summary reports directly.7GOV.UK. Download HMRC Basic PAYE Tools Larger employers use commercial software or outsource payroll. In every case the software is running the P11 calculations internally; you just do not see the sheet.
The only employers still completing a paper P11, or its digital equivalent the RT11, are those with an agreed exemption from online filing. If that describes you, the manual tax tables and working sheets are published on GOV.UK each tax year.
Keeping the Records
Whether you file on paper or through software, Regulation 97 of the Income Tax (Pay As You Earn) Regulations 2003 requires PAYE records to be kept for at least three years after the end of the tax year they relate to.8Legislation.gov.uk. The Income Tax (Pay As You Earn) Regulations 2003 – Regulation 97 The definition is broad and covers wages sheets, deductions working sheets, Starter Checklist documents, and anything else used to calculate PAYE income or tax deducted. Records can be kept in any form, so digital backups are acceptable as long as they stay accessible for the full period. HMRC inspectors may check your records at any time to confirm you are paying the right amount of tax.9GOV.UK. PAYE and Payroll for Employers – Keeping Records
Failing to keep or preserve adequate records can attract a penalty of up to £3,000 per failure, and one failure corresponds to one tax return or claim, so problems across multiple years stack up.10GOV.UK. Enquiry Manual – EM4650 – Penalties Failure to Keep or Preserve Records11Legislation.gov.uk. Finance Act 2007 – Schedule 2412GOV.UK. What Happens if You Do Not Report Payroll Information on Time13GOV.UK. Late Payment Penalties for PAYE and National Insurance