Tax code 1157L tells your employer to let you earn £11,570 before deducting income tax, which is £1,000 less than the standard Personal Allowance of £12,570.1GOV.UK. Income Tax Rates and Personal Allowances HMRC has trimmed your allowance by exactly £1,000, almost always to collect tax on a workplace benefit or to recover an underpayment from a previous year. The “L” on the end confirms you’re still entitled to the standard Personal Allowance; only the amount has been adjusted. Collection happens through your payslip across the year, which is why the change arrived as a new code rather than a bill.
What the £1,000 Reduction Costs You
Compared with the standard 1257L code, 1157L means you pay tax on an extra £1,000 of income over the year. For a basic-rate taxpayer that’s about £200 in additional tax across twelve months, or roughly £16.67 a month. For a higher-rate taxpayer, the difference is around £400 a year.
Your employer spreads the £11,570 across your pay periods. On monthly pay, roughly £964 of each month’s wages sits inside the tax-free band, and anything above that is taxed at 20% on the first £37,700 of taxable income, 40% between £50,270 and £125,140, and 45% above £125,140.1GOV.UK. Income Tax Rates and Personal Allowances The impact on any single payslip is small. Over a full year, it adds up enough to be worth checking.
Why HMRC Took £1,000 Off Your Allowance
Something in HMRC’s records is worth exactly £1,000 against your allowance, or several smaller items add up to that figure. The breakdown appears on the P2 coding notice HMRC sends when your code changes.2HM Revenue & Customs. PAYE Manual – PAYE11030
A Taxable Workplace Benefit
If your employer provides private medical insurance, a company car, or another taxable benefit in kind, HMRC deducts the taxable value of the benefit from your Personal Allowance so the tax is collected through PAYE.3GOV.UK. Tax Codes – Why Your Tax Code Might Change Your employer reports each benefit’s value on a P11D after the tax year ends, and HMRC feeds that figure into your code.4GOV.UK. Expenses and Benefits for Employers – Reporting and Paying A benefit valued at £1,000 turns 1257L into 1157L.
The cash never touches your account, but HMRC treats the benefit as part of your pay. If the benefit started partway through the year, your code can shift partway through the year too.
An Underpayment From an Earlier Year
If HMRC finds that you underpaid tax in a previous year, it can recover the shortfall by shrinking your current code. Amounts up to £3,000 can be collected this way, spread across the year through PAYE.5GOV.UK. Pay Your Self Assessment Tax Bill – Through Your Tax Code HMRC can’t use this route if it would take more than 50% of your PAYE income in tax, or if it would more than double your usual tax bill. The internal ceiling for code-based recovery of underpayments identified through informal calculations or Self Assessment balancing payments is £2,999.99.6HM Revenue & Customs. PAYE Manual – PAYE90025 A £1,000 restriction to claw back an underpayment produces 1157L.
Several Smaller Items Combined
Sometimes no single item explains the whole £1,000. A £600 taxable benefit and a £400 underpayment combine to the same result. The P2 lists each item separately, so you can see whether the arithmetic actually reflects your circumstances.
Marriage Allowance Is Not the Reason
A common assumption is that 1157L comes from Marriage Allowance. It doesn’t. Marriage Allowance transfers £1,260 (not £1,000) of Personal Allowance between spouses or civil partners. The person giving up allowance drops to £11,310 and gets a code ending in “N,” such as 1131N; the recipient gets a code ending in “M.”7GOV.UK. Marriage Allowance – How It Works8GOV.UK. Tax Codes – What Your Tax Code Means If you’re seeing 1157L, the £1,000 deduction is coming from somewhere else.
If Your Code Starts With S or C
S1157L applies Scottish income tax rates to the same £11,570 allowance. Scotland’s bands run through starter, basic, intermediate, higher, advanced, and top rates, so your total tax bill can be higher or lower than a taxpayer in England on the same code and income.9mygov.scot. Scottish Income Tax – Tax Codes C1157L applies the Welsh rates, which currently match those in England and Northern Ireland but are set separately by the Welsh Parliament.10GOV.UK. Income Tax in Wales The allowance figure itself is the same across the UK.
Checking Whether 1157L Is Right for You
The quickest check is HMRC’s online Personal Tax Account. The “Check your Income Tax” tool shows your current code, what it’s based on, and every deduction that went into it.11GOV.UK. Check Your Income Tax for the Current Year You sign in with Government Gateway credentials, and first-time users may need photo ID to verify identity.
To work through it on paper, gather:
- Your most recent P2 coding notice, which itemises every allowance and deduction that produced the code.2HM Revenue & Customs. PAYE Manual – PAYE11030
- Your latest P60, showing total pay and tax for the previous tax year.12GOV.UK. Your P45, P60 and P11D Form
- Any P11D from your employer listing taxable benefits and their values.4GOV.UK. Expenses and Benefits for Employers – Reporting and Paying
- Recent payslips, to confirm your employer is applying the code shown on the P2.
Match the items on the P2 to real facts about your job. If you started receiving a benefit worth roughly £1,000, or you know you underpaid last year, 1157L likely reflects reality. If nothing has changed and you’ve never had a benefit in kind, the code deserves a challenge.
Getting the Code Changed
You can report an incorrect code through the same “Check your Income Tax” service, updating details about income, benefits, and employment.11GOV.UK. Check Your Income Tax for the Current Year By phone, you’ll need your National Insurance number and the documents above.
When HMRC agrees to a change, it notifies you and your employer within 15 working days.13GOV.UK. Tax Codes – If You Think Your Tax Code Is Wrong On monthly pay, the new code usually appears on your next or second payslip; on weekly pay, expect it by about the third.
If 1157L Turns Out to Have Been Wrong
A wrong code means you’ve paid too much tax or too little. After 5 April, HMRC reconciles your records and may issue a P800 tax calculation or a Simple Assessment letter with the outcome.14GOV.UK. Tax Overpayments and Underpayments
Overpaid, and the letter tells you how to claim the refund. Underpaid by less than £3,000, and HMRC typically collects it through next year’s code, which means another adjusted code arriving in your inbox.5GOV.UK. Pay Your Self Assessment Tax Bill – Through Your Tax Code Underpaid by more, and HMRC bills you directly.
Catching a wrong code early keeps the correction small. Left alone from April to March, a full year of over- or under-collection has already happened. Check whenever a new P2 lands or an unfamiliar code shows up on a payslip.