HMRC Tax Refund: How to Claim and When You'll Get Paid

Find the row that matches what you paid too much tax on. The routes and timings come from HMRC's own tax refund tool on GOV.UK.

There is a different way to claim a tax refund on a pension. If you pay through Self Assessment and sent your return online, check whether you completed the section called 'If you have paid too much tax'. If you did, you will usually get a refund automatically.

It is the letter HMRC sends if you paid too much or too little tax by the end of the tax year on 5 April. You only get one if you are employed or get a pension. Letters go out between June and March of the following tax year. People registered for Self Assessment do not get one, because their bill is adjusted automatically.

You might get a P800 because you:

• were put on the wrong tax code, for example because HMRC had the wrong information about your income
• finished one job, started a new one and were paid by both in the same month
• started receiving a pension at work
• received Employment and Support Allowance or Jobseeker's Allowance

If you did not get a P800 after the end of a tax year, HMRC says you probably paid the right amount of tax. You can check by signing in to your personal tax account or the HMRC app.

It ranges from 5 working days to about 6 weeks, depending on the route, and the table above gives the usual time for each. If you claim because you stopped work, wait at least 14 days before contacting HMRC about your application. Wait 5 weeks after an online claim and 6 weeks after a postal claim before contacting HMRC about the payment.

For a Self Assessment refund, contact HMRC if you have not got it after waiting 14 weeks in total. While HMRC processes it, it may still show as available credit in your account. If you got a submission reference, do not request the refund again, because that could cause a delay.

HMRC only pays refunds into UK bank accounts. If you do not have one, you can nominate someone else to receive the money or cheque. It may not give you a refund if you have tax due in the next 45 days, and instead takes the money from the tax you owe.

Back to April 2022 for pay from a job. HMRC's tool says you can claim for the years 6 April 2022 to 5 April 2025 through your personal tax account, and that you cannot reclaim any tax you overpaid before April 2022. The tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April the following year.

You might be able to, if all of these are true:

• ✓Yes: you paid for the things with your own money
• ✓Yes: you only use those things for your work
• ✓Yes: your employer has not given back all the money you spent
• ✓Yes: you paid tax in the year you are claiming for

You get relief based on what you spent and your tax rate. GOV.UK's example: if you claim £60 and pay tax at 20%, you are entitled to £12. If you complete a Self Assessment return, you must claim through that return.

You cannot claim working from home relief from the tax year starting 6 April 2026. For the 4 previous tax years, you can claim if you had to work from home, for example because your employer has no office, but not if you chose to.

To claim, you must have been paid for the final time by your last employer and have finished your last paid job more than 4 weeks ago. If you are out of work for less than 4 weeks and due a refund, you will get it through your wages from your new job.

If you get Jobseeker's Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance, Carer's Allowance, or Incapacity Benefit after more than 28 weeks, you cannot get a refund straight away. GOV.UK says to give the Jobcentre Plus parts 2 and 3 of your P45, and you may get a refund at the end of the tax year or when you start a new job. Our guide to tax on redundancy pay covers that payment in detail, and Jobseeker's Allowance and Carer's Allowance have their own guides.

Treat a refund email as a scam, because HMRC does not send details of tax refunds by email. Do not give out bank details or passwords, reply, download attachments or click on links if you are not sure a message is genuine.

The routes on this page come from GOV.UK's tool, which does not set separate routes by nation. If you pay Scottish Income Tax, your tax code starts with an S. Our tax guides list what else we cover.